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EVOLUTION 
'  OCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 


BY 

ARTHUR  M.  LEWIS 


THIRD   EDITION 


80 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

1908 


CONTENTS 


Page 

I     THALES  TO   LINNAEUS 7 

II     LINNAEUS    TO    LAMARCK 24 

III  DARWIN'S    "NATURAL    SELECTION" ;.   38 

IV  WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OP  HEREDITY. GO 

V     DE    VRIES'    "MUTATION" 81 

VI     KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL    AID" 97 

VII     A  REPLY  TO  HAECKE^L 115 

VIII     SPENCER'S  "SOCIAL  ORGANISM" 133 

IX     SPENCER'S    INDIVIDUALISM 149 

X  CIVILIZATION  -  WARD    AND    DIETZGEN ...  168 

LOAN  STACK 


3lI 


PREFACE. 

The  contents  of  this  volume  consist  of  the 
first  ten  lectures  of  the  thirty-five  in  the  Win- 
ter course  of  1907-08.  They  were  delivered  in 
the  Garrick  Theater,  Chicago,  on  Sunday  morn- 
ings to  crowded  houses.  On  several  occasions 
half  as  many  people  were  turned  away  as 
managed  to  get  in.  If  these  lectures  meet  with 
as  warm  a  reception  when  read  as  they  did 
when  heard,  I  shall  be  more  than  satisfied.  For 
a  fuller  discussion  of  the  Greek  period,  briefly 
dealt  with  in  the  first  lecture,  see  Edward 
Clodd's  "Pioneers  of  Evolution''  to  which  work 
the  early  part  of  this  lecture  is  greatly  indebted. 

Every  lecture  proceeds  on  the  assumption, 
that  a  knowledge  of  the  natural  sciences,  and 
especially  the  great  revolutionizing  generaliza- 
tions which  they  have  revealed,  is  indispens- 
able to  a  modern  education. 

This  position  is  by  no  means  new.  It  per- 
vades the  classic  literature  of  Socialism 
throughout.  Liebknecht,  speaking  of  Marx 
and  himself  says:  ''Soon  we  were  on  the  field 
of  Natural  Science,  and  Marx  ridiculed  the 
victorious  reaction  in  Europe  that  fancied  it 
had  smothered  the  revolution  and    did    not 

L      907 


4  PREFACE 

suspect  that  Natural  Science  was  preparing  a 
new  revolution/' 

The  only  thing  I  have  succeeded  in  doing 
which  is  at  all  new,  is  presenting  these  so- 
called  heavy  subjects  in  a  way  that  attracts 
and  retains  a  large  and  enthusiastic  audience 
Sunday  after  Sunday  eight  months  of  the  year. 

These  lectures,  nothwithstanding  their 
phenomenal  success,  have  aroused  some  oppo- 
sition, in  certain  quarters  among  Socialists. 
This  opposition  arises  almost  wholly  from  the 
fact  that  the  Socialists  in  question  have  yet  to 
learn  what  their  own  standard  literature  con- 
tains. When  they  make  that  discovery  they 
will  be  obliged  to  do  one  of  two  things,  reject 
the  Socialist*  philosophy  or  cease  opposing  its 
public  presentation. 

A  second  thought  will  show  that  they  may 
do  neither.  There  is  a  type  of  brain  the 
specimens  of  which  are  very  numerous,  which 
seems  to  possess  the  faculty  of  keeping  differ- 
ent kinds  of  knowledge  and  contradictory 
ideas,  in  separate,  water-tight  compartments. 
Thus,  as  these  ideas  never  come  together  there 
is  no  collision. 

The  most  conspicuous  example  of  this  is  the 
man  who  accepts  and  openly  proclaims  the 
truth  of  the  materialistic  conception  of  history 
— the  theory  that,  among  other  things,  explains 


PREFACE  6 

the  origin,  functions,  and  changes  of  religion, 
just  as  it  does  those  of  law — ^yet  the  very  man 
who  boasts  of  his  concurrence  in  this  epoch- 
making  theory,  using  one  lobe  of  his  brain, 
will',  while  using  the  other  lobe,  and  with  still 
greater  fervency,  maintain  that  the  Socialist 
philosophy  has  nothing  to  do  with  religion  at 
all,  but  is  an  ''economic"  question  only.  The 
left  lobe  knows  not  what  the  right  lobe  is 
doing.  Dietzgen  described  these  Comrades  as 
"dangerous  muddle-heads/'  He  might  have 
omitted  the  adjective.  A  brain  of  this  order 
renders  its  possessor  harmless. 

These  well-meaning  friends  have  offered  a 
great  deal  of  advice  as  to  how  to  conduct  our 
meeting  without  "driving  people  away."  Yet 
strangely  enough  our  audience  grew  by  leaps 
and  bounds,  until  from  seventy-five  at  the 
first  lecture  we  are  now  crowding  and  often 
overcrowding  one  of  the  largest  and  finest 
theaters  inside  the  loop.  Meanwhile  they 
followed  their  own  advice  and  saw  what  was 
at  the  beginning  a  fine  audience  of  five  hundred 
grow  less  and  less  until  it  is  less  than  fifty  and 
sometimes  falls  below  thirty.  This  does  not 
seem  to  justify  the  cry  that  the  working  class 
is  hungering  for  Christian  Socialism. 

Further  volumes  of  these  lectures  will  carry 


$  PREFACE 

the  theories  of  Socialism  into  yet  other  fields 
of  science  and  philosophy. 

In  conclusion  let  me  ask  a  certain  type  of 
correspondents  to  save  my  time  and  their  own. 
They  say  they  agree  with  my  views  entirely; 
there  is  no  question  but  I  am  right.  And  the 
lectures  would  be  in  place  if  delivered  before 
university  men.  But  workingmen  (my  top- 
lofty correspondents  not  included  of  course) 
have  so  many  ignorant  prejudices  that  fearless 
scientific  teaching  is  not  acceptable  to  them. 
The  size  of  my  audience  is  sufficient  disproof 
of  the  last  statement.  As  to  the  rest,  it  is  just 
the  existence  of  ignorant  prejudices  that  makes 
the  fearless  teaching  of  science  necessary. 
Again,  I  have  yet  to  be  convinced  that  there  is 
any  kind  of  knowledge  which  is  good  for 
university  men,  but  unfit  for  workingmen. 
Moreover,  I  positively  refuse  to  have  one  kind 
of  knowledge  for  myself,  and  another  to  give 
out  to  my  audience.  This  is  the  fundamental 
principle  of  priestcraft,  and  the  working  class 
has  had  far  too  much  of  it  already. 

On  this  ground — that  there  is  nothing  higher 
than  reality,  that  Socialism  is  in  harmony  with 
all  reality  and  that  in  the  end  reality  must 
triumph — the  future  lectures  of  these  courses 
will  stand  or  fall.  Arthur  M.  Lewis. 

Chicago,  Dec.  27,  '07. 


EVOLUTION, 
SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

1. 

THALES  TO  LINNAEUS. 

"Early  ideas/'  vsays  Herbert  Spencer,  "are 
usually  vague  adumbrations  of  the  truth/'  and 
however  numerous  may  be  the  exceptions,  this 
was  undoubtedly  the  case  with  the  evolu- 
tionary speculations  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 
The  greatness  of  that  remarkable  republic  finds 
one  of  its  most  striking  manifestations  in  the 
fact  that  so  many  great  modern  ideas  trace 
their  ancestry  back  to  Greece.  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  the  historical  jurist,  said  that,  "except 
the  blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  that 
is  not  Greek  in  its  origin."  Compared  with  her 
dreamy  oriental  neighbors,  Greece  shone  like  a 
meteor  in  a  moonless  night.  As  Professor 
Burnet  says,  "They  left  off  telling  tales.  They 
gave  up  the  hopeless  task  of  describing  what 
was,  when  as  yet  there  was  nothing,  and  asked 
instead  what  all  things  really  are  now,"  while 
the  Oriental  shrunk  from  the  search  after 
T 


3  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

causes,  looking,  as  Professor  Butcher  aptly 
remarks  "on  each  fresh  gain  of  earth  as  so 
much  robbery  of  heaven." 

The  Greeks  very  largely  discarded  the  theo- 
logical mind,  peopled  with  its  pious  phantasms, 
and  sought  to  probe  into  the  nature  of  the 
material  universe.  This  is  why  we  discover  a 
fairly  distinct,  and  sometimes  startlingly  clear 
"adumbration"  of  the  theory  of  evolution 
running  like  a  chain  of  gold  through  the  im- 
mortal fragments  of  their  greatest  thinkers. 

What  is  it  that  really  is,  and  what  that  only 
seems  to  be?  What  is  real,  and  what  is  only 
apparent?  This  is  the  theme  which  Greek  phi- 
losophy has  in  common  with  modern  thought, 
and  this  is  why  the  remnants  of  Greek  litera- 
ture are  so  precious  in  the  twentieth  century. 

Thales,  of  Miletus,  in  Asia  Minor,  is  con- 
ceded to  have  been  the  founder  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy. "He  asserted  water  to  be  the  principle 
of  all  things,"  says  Diogenes  Laertius,  and  he 
regarded  all  life  as  coming  from  water,  a  po- 
sition by  no  means  foreign  to  modern  science. 

Anaximander,  also  a  Milesian  and  a  younger 
contemporary  of  Thales,  who  like  him  flour- 
ished between  500  and  600  B.  C.,  said  that  the 
material  cause  of  all  things  was  the  Infinite. 
"It  is  neither  water  nor  any  other  of  what  are 
now    called    the    elements,    but   a    substance 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  9 

different  from  them  which  is  infinite,  from 
which  arise  all  the  heavens  and  the  worlds 
within  them."  "Man,"  he  boldly  asserts,  "is 
like  another  animal,  namely,  a  fish,  in  the  be- 
ginning," a  shrewd  guess  which  is  now  an 
established  fact. 

Anaximenes,  the  third  and  last  of  the 
Milesian  philosophers,  while  following  his 
predecessors  closely  in  time,  disagreed  with 
them  as  to  the  raw  material  of  the  universe. 
He  declares  it  to  be  air  which,  "when  it  is 
dilated  so  as  to  be  rarer  becomes  fire  while 
winds,  on  the  other  hand,  are  condensed  air, 
Cloud  is  formed  from  air  by  'felting'  and  this, 
still  further  condensed,  becomes  water.  Water, 
condensed  still  more,  turns  to  earth ;  and  when 
condensed  as  much  as  it  can  be,  to  stones." 
All  of  which  proves  that  Anaximenes  had  a 
very  fertile  brain. 

Herakleitos,  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  Greek 
thinkers,  lived  for  a  time  at  Ephesus  and  ex- 
pressed the  following  forceful  opinion  of  his 
fellow  citizens :  "The  Ephesians  would  do  well 
to  hang  themselves,  every  grown  man  of  them, 
and  leave  the  city  to  beardless  youths ;  for  they 
have  cast  out  Hermodoros,  the  best  man 
among  them,  saying:  *We  will  have  none  who 
is  best  among  us ;  if  there  be  any  such,  let  him 
be  so  elsewhere  and  among  others.' "  Accord- 


10  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

ing  to  him  everything  comes  from  and  returns 
to  fire  and  "all  things  are  in  a  state  of  flux  like 
a  river."  Here  is  the  intellectual  ancestor  of 
Hegel  with  his  great  saying.  "Nothing  is, 
everything  is  becoming."  Herakleitos  sagac- 
iously observed:  "You  cannot  step  twice  into 
the  same  rivers,  for  fresh  waters  are  ever  flow- 
ing in  upon  you." 

Parmenides,  born  at  Elea  about  515  B.  C, 
was  poet  and  philosopher  both,  and  insisted  in 
his  hexameter  verse  that  the  universe  is  a 
unity,  which  neither  came  out  of  nothing,  nor 
could,  in  any  degree,  pass  away,  thus  anti- 
cipating by  over  2,000  years  Lavoisier's 
doctrine  of  the  permanence  of  matter. 

Empedocles,  of  Akragas  in  Sicily,  about  the 
same  time,  stated  this  great  truth  with  still 
greater  force  and  clearness :  "Fools ! — for  they 
have  no  far-reaching  thoughts — who  deem  that 
what  before  was  not,  comes  into  being  or  that 
aught  can  perish  and  be  utterly  destroyed.  For 
it  cannot  be  that  aught  can  arise  from  what  in 
no  way  is,  and  it  is  impossible  and  unheard  of 
that  what  is  should  perish ;  for  it  will  always 
be,  wherever  one  may  keep  putting  it."  He 
also  endeavored  to  combine  and  reconcile  the 
ideas  of  some  of  his  predecessors,  teaching  that 
all  things  come  from  four  roots— water,  air, 
fire  and  earth. 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  It 

Anaxagoras,  born  about  500  B.  C,  was  the 
first  Greek  to  suffer  for  science.  He  was 
brought  to  trial  for  asserting  the  sun  to  be  a 
red  hot  stone,  and  it  would  have  probably  gone 
hard  with  him  had  not  the  mighty  Pericles 
been  his  friend.  If  the  sun  was  merely  a  fiery 
ball,  what  became  of  the  religion  founded  on 
the  worship  of  Apollo? 

Nearly  a  half  a  century  earlier  Xenophanes, 
of  Colophon,  had  ventilated  ideas  much 
more  obnoxious  to  the  priests.  He  had 
done  for  his  age  what  Feuerbach  did 
to  the  Nineteenth  century — he  had  explained 
the  origin  of  the  gods  by  Anthropomorphism. 
Said  he:  "If  oxen  or  lions  had  hands, 
and  could  paint  with  their  hands  and  pro- 
duce works  of  art  as  men  do,  horses  would 
paint  the  forms  of  the  gods  like  horses  and 
oxen  like  oxen.  Each  would  represent  them 
with  bodies  according  to  the  form  of  each.  So 
the  Ethiopians  make  their  gods  black  and 
snubnosed;  the  Thracians  give  theirs  red  hair 
and  blue  eyes."  Had  Xenophanes  lived  at 
Athens,  where  a  religious  revival  had  just 
taken  place,  he  would  have  shared  the  fate 
which  later  overtook  the  impious  Socrates. 
Luckily  for  Xenophanes,  in  the  colony  where 
he  lived  "the  gods  were  left  to  take  care  of 
themselves."      Anaxagoras    was    the    fir.st    to 


12  EVOLUTION.  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

determine  what  causes  the  eclipses  and  the 
illumination  of  the  moon : — "The  moon  has  not 
a  light  of  her  own  but  gets  it  from  the  sun. 
The  moon  is  eclipsed  by  the  earth  screening 
the  sun's  light  from  it.  The  sun  is  eclipsed  at 
the  new  moon,  when  the  moon  screens  it  from 
us." 

The  Pythagoreans  who  must  be  distin- 
guished from  the  medicine  man  Pythagoras, 
from  whom  they  only  take  their  name  indirect- 
ly, and  not  as  disciples,  believed  the  reality  of 
the  universe  was  to  be  found  in  numbers. 
They  were  deceived  into  this  absurdity  by  the 
exactness  of  mathematical  conclusions.  This 
was  excusable  among  the  Greeks  to  whom 
arithmetical  combinations  were  as  wonderful 
as  electrical  phenomena  are  to  us,  but  its  re- 
vival in  our  day  by  astrologers  and  theo- 
sophists  has  no  such  justification. 

Socrates,  born  about  470  B.  C,  at  Athens,  is 
described  as  "pug-nosed,  thick-lipped,  big- 
bellied  and  bulging-eyed" — the  very  opposite 
of  the  Greek  ideal  of  beauty.  He  believed  that 
knowledge  itself  would  bring  virtue,  and 
sought  to  discover  the  true  ground  of  knowl- 
edge. His  search  brought  him  into  conflict 
with  the  religious  bigotry  of  his  day  and  he 
was  finally  sentenced  to  death  and  died  from 
drinking   hemlock   in    399   B.   C.     He   wrote 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  13 

nothing  and  his  work  is  preserved  mainly 
through  his  influence  on  Plato. 

Leukippos  and  Demokritos  are  linked  to- 
gether through  their  statements  of  the  atomic 
theory,  made  more  than  twenty  centuries  be- 
fore Dalton.  They  placed  the  permanent 
reality  of  things  in  numberless  atoms,  of  which 
Leukippos  said  "there  are  an  infinite  number 
of  them,  and  they  are  invisible  owing  to  the 
smallness  of  their  bulk." 

Plato  we  shall  pass  by ;  his  metaphysical  doc- 
trine of  ideas  contributed  little  of  value  to  the 
solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  universe. 

We  now  come  to  the  great  Stagirite,  Arist- 
otle, founder  of  the  experimental  school  and 
father  of  natural  history.  Born  in  384  B.  C,  he 
entered  the  Academy  under  Plato  when  a  boy 
of  eighteen.  When  he  was  thirty-six  Plato 
died,  and  Aristotle  then  left  Athens.  At  forty- 
one  he  became  the  teacher  of  Alexander  the 
Great.  He  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  Greeks, 
and  his  studies  took  a  wider  range  than  had 
been  embraced  by  any  previous  thinker. 

Stageira,  where  he  spent  his  boyhood,  was 
on  the  Strynomid  gulf,  and  here  he  observed 
the  variations  and  gradations  between  marine 
plants  and  animals.  It  is  an  evidence  of  his 
keen  insight  that  he  classified  the  sponge  as  an 
animal.     Compare  this  with  Agassiz,  the  op- 


14  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

ponent  of  Darwinism,  who,  in  the  19th  century, 
declared  the  sponge  to  be  a  vegetable. 

Aristotle  insisted  on  observation  and  experi- 
ence as  the  foundation  of  knowledge.  "We 
must  not  accept  a  general  principle  from  logic 
only,  but  must  prove  its  application  to  each 
fact.  For  it  is  in  facts  we  must  seek  general 
principles,  and  these  must  always  accord  with 
facts."  He  repudiated  the  idea  of  purpose  in 
nature,  saying,  "Jupiter  rains  not  that  corn  may 
be  increased,  but  from  necessity."  He  came 
very  near  Von  Mohl's  protoplasm  when  he 
said,  "Germs  should  have  been  first  produced, 
and  not  immediately  animals;  and  that  soft 
mass  which  first  subsisted  was  the  germ." 

Passing  over  the  much  misrepresented  Epi- 
curus we  come  two  centuries  later  to  the 
illustrious  Roman  poet  philosopher,  Lucretius. 
In  this  last  century  preceeding  the  Christian 
era,  Greece  had  fallen  from  her  high  estate  and 
become  a  Roman  province.  But  while  Rome 
had  annexed  Greece,  Greek  learning  had  con- 
quered the  Roman  mind. 

Lucretius  in  his  poem,  "The  System  of  Na- 
ture," expounds,  with  great  force,  the  atomic 
theory  of  his  Greek  forerunners.  The  first 
anthropologist,  he  comes  so  near  to  Spencer 
and  Tylor  that  his  ideas,  and  sometimes  even 
his  sentences  smack  of  the  19th  century.    "The 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  15 

past  history  of  man  "  he  asserts,  "lies  in  no 
heroic  or  golden  age,  but  in  one  struggle  out 
of  savagery/'  Of  the  origin  of  language  he 
says,  "Nature  impelled  them  to  utter  the 
various  sounds  of  the  tongue,  and  use  struck 
out  the  names  of  things,"  Of  the  early 
struggles  of  primitive  men  he  says,  "Man's 
first  arms  were  hands,  nails  and  teeth  and 
stones  and  boughs  broken  off  from  the  forests, 
and  flame  and  fire,  as  soon  as  they  had  become 
known.  Afterward  the  force  of  iron  and  copper 
was  discovered,  and  the  use  of  copper  was 
known  before  that  of  iron,  as  its  nature  is 
easier  to  work,  and  it  is  found  in  greater 
quantity.  With  copper  they  would  labor  the 
soil  of  the  earth  and  stir  up  the  billows  of  war. . 
Then  by  slow  steps  the  sword  of  iron  gained 
ground  and  the  make  of  the  copper  sickle  be- 
came a  byword."  The  name  of  Lucretius 
closes  the  long  line  of  the  evolutionary  pion- 
eers of  the  ancient  world.  There  the  golden 
vein  ceases  so  far  as  thinking  is  concerned,  not 
to  reappear  until  many  centuries  have  passed. 
With  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire, and  the  rise  to  power  of  Christianity, 
learning  was  driven  from  Europe  and  found 
refuge  among  the  Arabians.  This  brings  us 
to  the  dark  or  middle  ages.  It  is  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  phenomena  of  this  period,  that 


16  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

bourgeois  free  thinkers  like  Clodd  and  Draper 
break  down.  They  tacitly  assume  that  in 
Europe  evolution  was  suspended  for  over  a 
thousand  years ;  and  all  because  of  the  Christ- 
ian church.  They  fail  to  recognize  that  deeper 
cause,  the  medieval  form  of  wealth  production, 
which  gave  the  church  its  power  to  repress 
learning  in  the  interest  of  the  lords  of  the  land, 
among  which  the  church  herself  was  greatest ; 
owning  as  she  did  one-third  of  the  soil  of 
Europe. 

The  bourgeois  radical  cannot  perceive  that 
during  this  period  social  processes  were  being 
gradually  transformed  and  that  an  economic 
foundation  was  being  laid  that  would  make 
possible  the  renaissance  and  put  science  in  an 
impregnable  position,  and  make  the  pro- 
gressive acceptance  of  evolution  inevitable. 
Engels  says :  "The  Middle  Ages  were  reckoned 
as  a  mere  interruption  of  history  by  a  thou- 
sand years  of  bararism.  The  great  advances 
of  the  Middle  Ages — the  broadening  of 
European  learning,  the  bringing  into  existence 
of  great  nations,  which  arose,  one  after  the 
other,  and  finally  the  enormous  technical  ad- 
vances of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries 
— all  this  no  one  saw". 

But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  this  was  a 
terrible  period  for  any  thinker  who  had  the 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  17 

misfortune  to  be  born  in  it.  All  that  was  great 
and  noble  in  the  thought  of  Greece  and  Rome 
was  rigorously  suppressed.  The  "perfecting 
principle"  of  Aristotle  was  wrested  to  theolog- 
ical uses.  An  emaciated  form  of  his  philosophy, 
and  a  literal  interpretation  of  the  scriptures, 
constituted  the  only  permissible  studies.  Out- 
side this  dilution  of  Aristotle,  the  only  thing  in 
Greek  thought  which  appealed  to  the  medieval 
mind  was  the  Pythagorean  mystical  use  of 
numbers.  The  conclusions  reached  by  that 
method  were  truly  remarkable,  especially  when 
we  remember  that  they  engaged  such  notable 
men  as  Augustine,  the  celebrated  Bishop  of 
Hippo. 

These  are  examples :  Because  there  are  three 
persons  in  the  trinity,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,  three  orders  in  the  church,  bishops 
priests  and  deacons;  three  degrees  of  attain- 
ment, light,  purity  and  knowledge;  three 
virtues,  faith,  hope  and  charity,  and  three  eyes 
in  a  honeybee;  therefore,  there  can  only  be 
three  colors,  red,  yellow  and  blue.  Because 
there  were  seven  churches  in  the  apocalypse, 
seven  golden  candlesticks,  seven  cardinal 
virtues,  seven  deadly  sins  and  seven  sacra- 
ments; therefore,  there  could  only  be  seven 
planets  and  seven  metals.  Because  there  were 
seventy-two  disciples  and  seventy-two  inter- 


18  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

preters  of  the  old  testament  and  seventy-two 
mystical  names  of  God;  therefore  there  must 
be  no  more  and  no  less  than  seventy-two  joints 
in  the  human  body. 

During  this  period,  European  cities  had  no 
paving  or  lighting,  and  one  could  not  step 
from  a  doorway  in  London  or  Paris  without 
plunging  ankle  deep  in  mud.  They  had  pract- 
ically no  drainage  and  they  were,  at  frequent 
intervals  devastated  by  the  plague.  But  the 
cities  of  Andalusia,  built  and  governed  by  the 
Moors  in  Spain,  were  drained,  well  lighted  and 
solidly  paved.  They  had  public  libraries  and 
public  schools.  From  their  medical  colleges 
Europe  obtained  the  only  doctors  it  had. 

In  the  cities  of  Christian  Europe  these  en- 
lightened people  were  treated  like  dogs,  while 
in  their  wonderful  cities,  visiting  Christians 
were  met  with  a  hospitality  and  broad  tolera- 
tion wholly  exceptional  in  the  middle  ages. 

In  Europe,  even  toward  the  close  of  this 
period,  broad,  scientific  thinking  was  im- 
possible. Nicholas  Copernicus,  in  the  i6th 
century,  afraid  of  the  faggot,  carried  as  a 
secret  locked  in  his  own  bosom,  that  helio- 
centric theory  which  is  the  foundation  of 
modern  astronomy.  His  great  disciple  Gior- 
dano Bruno,  for  expounding  that  theory  with 
rare  ability,  after  it  was  revealed  by  the  great 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  19 

Prussian,  was  hunted  through  Europe  like  a 
wild  animal  and  finally  burned  at  the  stake. 

For  the  same  reason,  the  third  person  in  the 
trinity  of  the  i6th  century's  greatest  thinkers, 
Galileo,  was  harassed  and  humiliated,  and  at 
last  died  a  prisoner  in  his  own  house. 

But  all  through  this  period,  despite  its  in- 
tellectual stagnation,  economic  evolution  pro- 
ceeded, laying  the  foundation  for  a  new  in- 
tellectual superstructure.  That  evolution 
manifested  itself  chiefly  in  the  rise  and  growth 
of  a  trading  class.  To  the  existence  of  such  a 
class  in  its  society,  the  Arabians  owed  their 
greater  liberality,  and  scientific  spirit.  When 
Vasca  Da  Gama  sailed  down  the  west  coast  of 
Africa  and  around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
into  the  Indian  Ocean,  trusting  to  chance  for 
the  outcome  of  his  voyage,  he  found  the 
Arabians  directing  their  vessels  by  a  strange 
instrument  which  we  now  call  the  mariner's 
compass. 

The  merchants  of  Genoa  and  of  Spain  dis- 
covered that  orthodox  superstitions  did  not 
help  but  did  seriously  injure,  their  commerce. 
As  captains  for  their  ships  they  preferred  for 
purely  economic  reasons,  men  who  had  become 
infected  with  the  ideas  of  navigation  of  the 
pagan  Arabians,  to  men  who  took  their  ideas 
of  the  universe  from  the  city  bishop  or  the 


20  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

village  priest  and  kept  their  ships  close  to 
land,  afraid  lest  they  should  sail  off  the  edge 
of  the  world,  or  into  that  great  hole  where  the 
angels  put  the  sun  at  night,  after  they  had 
finished  rolling  it  across  the  sky. 

It  was  the  growth  and  final  triumph  of  this 
trading  class,  with  economic  interests  and  a 
mode  of  wealth  production  that  demanded  the 
liberation  of  science,  that  abolished  the  thumb- 
screw and  the  stake.  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and 
the  encyclopaedists  were  obnoxious  to  the 
feudal  regime,  lay  and  clerical,  because  they 
were  the  prophets  and  mouthpieces  of  the 
rising  bourgeoisie. 

This  class,  by  the  emancipation  of  science, 
performed  a  lasting  service  to  the  human  race. 
The  society  in  which  it  predominated,  at  once 
produced  a  prolific  crop  of  great  thinkers. 
Sweden  had  Linnaeus,  England  had  Lyell, 
Germany  had  Goethe;  but  the  palm  fell  to 
France.  In  the  revolution  France  had  sup- 
pressed the  Sorbonne^  that  theological  institu- 
tion which  had  always  shown  itself  the  official 
and  bitter  enemy  of  science,  and  she  soon  after 
equipped  scientific  expeditions,  which  gave  her 
the  greatest  thinkers  of  that  day — Cuvier,  St. 
Hilaire,  and,  most  illustrious  of  all  that  courag- 
eous pioneer  of  modern  evolution,  Jean  La- 
marck. 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  21 

The  position  of  the  capitalist  class  of  a 
hundred  years  ago  was  very  different  from 
that  of  today.  Then  it  was  the  harbinger  of 
progress ;  now  it  is  the  stronghold  of  reaction. 
Its  interests  then  were  very  different  from  its 
interests  now.  Then  it  was  called  upon  by 
destiny  to  steer  society  into  new  waters ;  now 
destiny  bids  it,  since  its  task  is  done,  to  step 
aside  that  a  new  hand  may  grip  the  wheel. 
Then  it  fought  a  social  order  which  had  had 
its  day,  now  it  is  in  the  midst  of  social  forces 
which  it  cannot  administer.  That  was  its 
lusty  youth ;  this  is  its  doddering  old  age. 

When  the  Bourgeoisie  released  science  from 
feudal  chains,  it  let  loose  a  force  that  carried  it 
to  victory,  but,  at  that  moment,  it  planted  the 
germs  of  its  own  future  destruction.  Today  it 
reverses  its  attitude  and  would  fain  suppress 
science  or  at  least  prevent  its  reaching  the 
proletarian  brain.  But  alas,  it  is  in  the  grip  of 
evolutionary  processes  of  which  it  is  merely 
a  part,  and  it  is  bound,  more  securely  than 
Prometheus  to  the  rock,  to  a  mode  of  pro- 
duction which  makes  the  education  of  the 
proletariat  a  relentless  necessity.  The  nation 
which  keeps  its  working  class  in  semi-feudal 
darkness  is  ground  to  pieces  by  the  industrial 
competition  of  its  neighbors — it  goes  to  the 
wall  in  the  struggle  for  existence.     Thus,  in 


22  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

the  language  of  Marx,  it  is  obliged  by  present 
necessity  to  dig  its  own  future  grave. 

The  same  inscrutable  power  that  called  it 
forth  to  lead  society  to  a  new  triumph,  now 
relegates  it  to  the  rear  and  enthrones  in  its 
place  a  new  class,  a  propertyless  working 
class,  the  child  of  the  wage  system,  destined 
to  emancipate  itself  and,  by  the  same  stroke, 
the  whole  human  race.  If  this  be  not  the  mis- 
sion of  the  working  class,  as  an  instrument  of 
social  evolution,  the  press  and  platform  of  the 
Socialist  movement  is  a  useless  dissipation  of 
energy.  But  this  is  precisely  what  Marx 
proved  when  he  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
Socialist  philosophy. 

Every  year  brings  its  quota  of  evidence  that 
the  working  class  is  gathering  the  political 
capacity  and  the  social  intelligence  necessary 
to  equip  it  for  this  tremendous  task. 

Norway  grew  weary  of  Swedish  dominance 
and  decided  to  achieve  national  independence. 
At  once  the  Swedish  Bourgeoisie  began  to  gird 
up  its  loins  for  a  bloody  dynastic  war.  The 
pampered  sons  of  its  aristocracy,  unable  to  do 
anything  useful,  were  to  have  glory  thrust 
upon  them,  commanding,  from  the  rear, 
regiments  of  Swedish  workers  to  slaughter 
and  be  slaughtered  by  their  exploited  Nor- 
wegian   brothers.      But    while    these    sinister 


THALES    TO    LINNAEUS  23 

preparations  were  in  full  blast,  a  vast  army 
of  Norwegians  crossed  the  boundary  line 
into  Sweden  and  met  a  Swedish  army  of 
the  same  proportions.  There  was  no  blood- 
shedding  for  both  armies  were  unarmed.  In 
place  of  bayonets  and  needle  guns  they  had 
their  wives  and  children.  They  fraternized; 
they  clasped  hands;  they  tossed  each  other's 
babies  in  their  arms.  From  that  moment  war 
was  impossible.  They  carried  neither  the 
national  banner  of  Sweden  nor  of  Norway. 
Over  both  those  great  armies,  now  become 
one,  singing  their  songs  of  working  class 
solidarity,  there  floated  the  red  flag  of  the 
social  revolution. 


II. 

LINNAEUS  TO  LAMARCK. 

For  a  hundred  years  the  word  "progress"  has 
been  a  word  to  conjure  with.  No  proposal  is 
too  reactionary  to  be  put  forward  in  its  name 
and  the  self-admitted  conservative  explains 
that  he  only  wishes  to  "conserve''  the  good 
things  which  progress  has  bestowed  upon  us. 
It  has  been  invoked  on  all  sides  of  all 
questions,  and  no  superstition  was  so  ancient 
or  absurd,  no  theory  so  exploded,  but  it  could 
be  revived  under  a  new  name  and  presented  to 
the  world  as  an  infallible  sign  of  the  progress 
of  the  age. 

But  during  the  last  century  men  have  arisen, 
who  were  dissatisfied  with  a  term  that  covered 
everything  and  meant  nothing,  and  who  were 
determined  to  find  out  what  constituted  pro- 
gress and  whether  it  had  any  existence  in  the 
world  of  reality.  More  has  been  accomplished 
in  this  respect  during  that  century  than  in  all 
the  combined  previous  existence  of  the  human 
race.  The  conception  or  idea  of  progress  is  the 
mental  reflection  of  the  process  of  evolution, 
which   operates   everywhere   to   the   remotest 

34 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  25 

niche  or  cranny  in  the  material  universe.  The 
only  difference  between  progress  and  evolu- 
tion is  that  evolution  is  a  more  inclusive  term, 
including  as  it  does  phenomena  which  we 
should  call  retrogressive. 

The  men  who  laid  the  foundations  of 
modern  knowledge,  and  imparted  sense  and 
force  to  hitherto  meaningless  terms,  were  they 
who  threw  aside  theological  phantasms  and 
metaphysical  speculations  and  set  themselves 
the  task  of  gathering  the  facts  and  ascertaining 
the  laws  of  the  real — the  material — world. 
This  is  the  method  of  science,  and  it  is  to  this 
method  that  we  owe  all  our  knowledge  of 
world  problems. 

For  more  than  a  thousand  years  this  method 
was  practically  suspended.  Any  attempt,  dur- 
ing that  period,  to  make  use  of  it  was  rigor- 
ously suppressed,  except  among  the  pagan 
Arabians.  Biological  science  stood  still, 
scarcely  even  marking  time.  Says  Packard 
"After  Aristotle,  no  epoch-making  zoologist 
arose  until  Linnaeus  was  born,"  a  yawning 
chasm  of  thirteen  hundred  years. 

Linnaeus,  born  1707,  in  Sweden,  was  the 
greatest  naturalist  of  his  time  and  might  have 
done  greater  things  for  evolutionary  ideas  had 
it  not  been  for  the  theological  influences  which 
restrained  him.    But^  hindered  as  he  was,  he 


26  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

accomplished  enough  to  entitle  him  to  a  piace 
among  the  immortals.  "He  found  botany  a 
chaos,"  says  ^  Prof.  Thatcher,  "and  left  it  a 
unity."  His  contribution  to  science  consists 
mainly  in  his  system  of  classification  and 
nomenclature.  Before  Linnaeus  nobody  had 
been  able,  though  many  had  tried,  to  group 
and  name  animal  and  vegetable  forms  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  rescue  them  from  utter  con- 
fusion. This  is  precisely  what  Linnaeus  did 
when,  by  a  happy  idea,  he  adopted  what  is 
called  the  "binary  nomenclature." 

This  great  advance  was  by  no  means  far- 
fetched; it  is  simply  an  application  of  the 
double  naming  everywhere  in  use,  as  in  the 
case  of  Tom  Smith,  Fred  Smith,  James  Smith, 
in  which  Smith  is  used  to  denote  the  general 
or  family  name  and  Fred  or  Tom  the  particular 
or  personal.  In  the  application  of  this  system 
to  species,  Linnaeus  reversed  the  order  as  we 
do  when  we  enter  the  names  of  persons  on  an 
alphabetical  list,  as  Smith,  Fred  and  Smith, 
James.  As  illustrations  we  will  take  the  two 
cases,  one  from  the  animal  and  one  from  the 
plant  world,  selected  by  Haeckel  for  the  same 
purpose.  The  generic  name  for  cat  is  Felis. 
The  common  cat  is  Felis  domestica;  the  wild- 
cat, Felis  catus ;  the  panther,  Felis  pardus ;  the 
jaguar,  Felis  onca;  the  tiger,  Felis  tigris;  the 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  27 

Hon,  Felis  leo.  All  these  second  names  are  the 
names  of  the  six  species  of  the  one  genus — 
Felis.  As  an  example  in  botany  take  the  genus 
pine.  According  to  Linnaeus  the  pine  is  Pinus 
abies;  the  fir,  Pinus  picea;  the  larch,  Pinus 
larix;  the  Italian  pine,  Pinus  pinea;  the  Si- 
berian stone  pine  Pinus  cembra;  the  knee 
timber,  Pinus  mughus;  the  common  pine, 
Pinus  silvestris.  The  seven  second  names  ap- 
ply to  the  seven  species  of  the  genus  Pinus. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Besides  grouping  the 
species  into  genera,  Linnaeus  classified  certain 
genera  as  belonging  to  the  same  "order." 
Again  he  arranged  these  "orders"  in  "classes," 
all  these  classes  belonged  to  one  of  the  two 
great  "kingdoms,"  vegetable  and  animal. 

Not  only  was  all  this  of  great  practical  value 
but  its  theoretical  influence  has  been  incalcu- 
lable. Linnaeus  never  saw,  and  probably 
would  not  have  dared  to  proclaim  if  he  had, 
that  the  resemblances  which  made  his  group- 
ing possible,  indicated  a  relationship  based  on 
descent  from  common  ancestors.  This  was 
left  for  men  of  greater  penetration  and  courage 
living  in  a  less  theological  age.  Prelates  who 
smiled  on  the  obscene  debaucheries  of  Louis 
the  XV.  had  Linnaeus'  writings  prohibited 
from  papal  states,  because  they  proved  the 
existence  of  sex  in  plants. 


28  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

Linnaeus  not  only  proved  sex  in  plants  but 
made  it  the  foundation  of  his  classification.  He 
also  reminds  us  that  plants  were  known  to  be 
of  both  sexes  by  oriental  people  in  early  days. 
Living  as  they  did  on  the  fruit  of  the  date- 
palms  they  found  it  necessary  to  plant  male 
trees  among  the  females.  Their  enemies  in 
war  time  struck  a  terrible  blow  when  they  cut 
down  the  male  trees,  thereby  reducing  them  to 
famine.  Sometimes  the  inhabitants  themselves 
destroyed  the  male  trees  during  impending  in- 
vasion, so  that  the  enemy  should  find  no 
sustenance  in  their  country;  a  war  measure 
similar  to  that  of  Russians  who  burned 
Moscow  in  the  face  of  Napoleon. 

In  the  same  year  that  Sweden  produced  Lin- 
naeus, France  gave  birth  to  Buflfon.  Rich  and 
independent,  he  chose  to  devote  a  long  life  to 
the  study  of  natural  history.  He  had  remark- 
able powers  of  research  and  displayed  genius 
in  presenting  the  results  of  his  investigation. 
But  alas!  he  had  less  courage  than  Linnaeus 
and  he  lived  nearer  that  terrible  enemy  of 
eighteenth  century  science,  the  theological  de- 
partment of  the  University  of  Paris — the 
dreaded  Sorbonne. 

As  long  as  he  confined  himself  to  the  mere 
description  of  animals  he  was  a  pet  of  the 
church,  which  seems  to  have  pleased  him,  but 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  29 

when  he  began  to  draw  evolutionary  con- 
clusions of  real  philosophical  import  and  value, 
the  Sorbonne  at  once  opened  its  batteries.  On 
these  occasions  Buffon's  retreat  was  prompt 
and  unprotesting.  It  might  be  remembered  as 
some  mitigation  of  his  cowardice  that  while 
the  reign  of  the  stake  and  faggot  did  not 
extend  into  the  i8th  century  and  there  was  no 
danger  of  the  fate  of  the  fearless  Bruno,  yet 
so  strong  was  religious  bigotry  even  in  this 
period  that  Rousseau  was  hunted  out  of 
France,  his  books  burned  by  the  public  execu- 
tioner, and  Diderot  went  to  jail.  "Hardly  a 
single  man  of  letters  of  that  time  escaped 
arbitrary  imprisonment,"  says  John  Morley  in 
his  "Rousseau." 

This  was  all  very  repugnant  to  the  pride  and 
vanity  of  Buflfon  and  led  him  to  adopt  a  style 
of  writing  much  in  vogue  a  century  earlier 
when  the  theological  hand  was  heavy  as  death. 
This  method  was  to  put  forward  the  new  idea 
as  a  heresy  or  a  mere  fancy,  explain  it,  and 
then  proceed  with  great  show  of  earnestness  to 
demolish  it  in  favor  of  the  orthodox  view.  This 
method  succeeded  admirably  until  it  broke 
through  the  thick  skulls  of  religious  bigots 
that  the  case  presented  for  the  "heresy"  was 
more  convincing  than  the  pretended  reply. 

A  fine  example  of  this  appears  in  the  fourth 


80  EVOLUTION.   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

volume  of  Buffon's  "Natural  History."  "If 
we  once  admit"  says  he,  "that  the  ass  belongs 
to  the  horse  family,  and  that  it  only  differs 
from  it  because  it  has  been  modified,  we  may 
likewise  say  that  the  monkey  is  of  the  same 
family  as  man,  that  it  is  a  modified  man,  that 
man  and  the  monkey  have  had  a  common 
origin  like  the  horse  and  ass,  that  each  family 
has  had  but  a  single  source,  and  even  that  all 
the  animals  have  come  from  a  single  animal, 
which  in  the  succession  of  ages  has  produced, 
while  perfecting  and  modifying  itself,  all  the 

races   of  other  animals If   it   were 

known  that  in  the  animals  there  had  been,  I 
do  not  say  several  species,  but  a  single  one 
which  had  been  produced  by  modification  from 
another  species ;  if  it  were  true  that  the  ass  is 
only  a  modified  horse,  there  would  be  no  limit 
to  the  power  of  nature,  and  we  would  not  be 
wrong  in  supposing  that  from  a  single  being 
she  has  known  how  to  derive,  with  time,  all 
the  other  organized  beings." 

There  is  no  such  clear  statement  of  the 
evolutionary  theory  in  the  "System  of  Nature" 
of  Linnaeus,  and  if  Buflfon  had  proclaimed 
these  views  as  his  own  and  courageously  de- 
fended them,  he  would  have  made  his  name 
the  greatest  of  the  i8th  century,  and  clothed 
himself  with  immortality.     But  the  stuff  of 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  31 

martyrs  did  not  enter  into  his  composition,  and 
the  very  next  passage  to  the  one  above,  trans- 
lated reads — "But  no!  It  is  certain  from  revela- 
tion that  all  animals  have  alike  been  favored 
with  the  grace  of  an  act  of  direct  creation,  and 
that  the  first  pair  of  every  species  issued  fully 
formed  from  the  hands  of  the  creator." 

When  the  Sorbonne  thought  it  was  being 
fooled  it  compelled  Buflfon  to  recant  publicly 
and  have  his  recantation  printed.  In  that  re- 
cantation he  announced,  "I  abandon  every- 
thing in  my  book  respecting  the  formation  of 
the  earth  and  generally  all  which  may  be 
contrary  to  the  narrative  of  Moses." 

The  impression  we  get  from  reading  Buffon, 
is  that  he  did  not  realize  the  importance  of 
those  great  evolutionary  ideas  which  he  stated 
so  well  and  repudiated  as  regularly.  Had  he 
done  so  and  stood  by  them,  he  would  have 
been  the  Darwin  of  his  day,  but  he  would  in 
all  likelihood  have  spent  the  latter  part  of  his 
life  in  the  Bastile. 

Not  until  forty  years  later  do  we  meet  the 
real  and  valiant  precursor  of  Darwin,  albeit  a 
countryman  of  Buffon's,  but  with  a  more 
profoundly  philosophical  mind  and  without  his 
fear.  This  was  Jean  Baptiste  Lamarck,  born 
at  Bazentin,  France,  1744,  and  educated  at  the 
college  of  the  Jesuits  at  Amiens.    He  served  in 


82  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND   ORGANIC 

the  seven  years  war  and  then  occupied  himself 
studying  medicine  and  science  at  Paris.  He 
died,  poor  and  blind,  in  1829. 

Lamarck  boldly  proclaimed  his  unshakable 
faith  in  the  doctrine  of  the  transformation  of 
species,  and  defended  it  against  the  strong  tide 
of  popular  disfavor  and  the  overwhelming 
opposition  provoked  by  the  antagonism  of  the 
great  zoologist  Cuvier.  Cuvier's  opposition 
would  have  crushed  a  weaker  man  but  La- 
marck bore  bravely  up  and  calmly  left  his  case 
for  the  future  to  decide.  Cuvier  held  species 
to  be  constant,  as  was  consonant  with  current 
and  orthodox  ideas.  This  made  him  a  social 
favorite  and  the  pet  of  the  church,  and  honors 
were  showered  profusely  upon  him  to  the  end 
of  his  days.  Not  so  Lamarck;  although  born 
25  years  earlier,  his  theories  were  half  a 
century  in  advance  of  Cuvier's,  and  he  paid  the 
penalty  that  has  so  often  overtaken  those 
pioneers  whose  vision  anticipated  the  future. 

"Attacked  on  all  sides,"  says  his  friend  and 
colleague,  Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire,  "injured  like- 
wise by  odious  ridicule,  Lamarck,  too  indig- 
nant to  answer  these  cutting  epigrams,  sub- 
mitted   to    the    indignity    with    a    sorrowful 

patience Lamarck  lived  a  long  while 

poor,  blind,  and  forsaken,  but  not  by  me;  I 
shall  ever  love  and  venerate  him."     Another 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  33 

writer  of  that  period  exclaims,  "Lamarck,  thy 
abandonment,  sad  as  it  was  in  thy  old  age,  is 
better  than  the  ephemeral  glory  of  men  who 
maintain  their  reputation  by  sharing  in  the 
errors  of  their  time."  As  to  Cuvier,  the  one 
stain  on  his  career  is  his  unworthy  attitude  to- 
ward his  celebrated  opponent  and  fellow 
worker.  Lamarck  had,  with  his  usual  generos- 
ity, aided  and  favored  him  when  he  first  came 
to  the  Museum  of  Natural  History  at  Paris, 
allowing  him  to  hold^  in  addition  to  his  own 
chair,  which  was  in  Vertebrate  Zoology,  the 
chair  of  Molluscs,  which  was  in  Lamarck's 
special  field,  where  he  had  no  equal,  and  which 
was  properly  his.  But  Lamarck  opposed,  with 
great  politeness  and  without  mentioning  his 
name  the  attempt  made  by  Cuvier  to  harmon- 
ize science  with  the  orthodox  theology  of  his 
day  by  means  of  that  theory  of  "cataclysms" 
which  in  spite  of  its  being  strenuously  de- 
fended by  so  recent  a  thinker  as  Agassiz,  has 
been  relegated  to  the  limbo  of  exploded  theo- 
ries. 

When  Lamarck  died,  Cuvier  as  his  most 
notable  contemporary  was  called  upon  to  pro- 
nounce his  eulogy.  What  a  miserable  and  un- 
worthy performance  it  was !  Even  after  death, 
religious  antipathy — that  ever-flowing  fountain 
of  meanness — survived  in  Cuvier's  breast,  and 


34  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

De  Blainville  records  that  "the  Academy  did 
not  even  allow  it  to  be  printed  in  the  form  in 
which  it  was  pronounced/'  and  it  is  said  that 
portions  of  it  had  to  be  omitted  as  unfit  for 
publication.  Haeckel,  speaking  of  Lamarck's 
great  book,  "Zoological  Philosophy/'  com- 
plains that  "Cuvier,  Lamarck's  greatest  op- 
ponent, in  his  'Report  on  the  Progress  of 
Natural  Science,'  in  which  the  most  unim- 
portant anatomical  investigations  are  enu- 
merated, does  not  devote  a  single  word  to  this 
work,  which  forms  an  epoch  in  science/' 

But  history  has  reversed  the  scales  and 
posterity  has  repaired  the  wrong.  That  theory 
of  biological  evolution,  which  was  despised 
and  rejected  by  the  builders  of  his  day  has 
become  the  corner-stone  of  modern  knowledge, 
while  Cuvier's  fantastic  "Theory  of  the  Earth" 
has  gone  to  the  museum  of  curiosities. 

Lamarck's  immortality  is  secured  by  his 
assertion  and  defense  of  the  theory  of  descent, 
alone.  This  theory  is,  that  all  existing  species 
have  descended  from  ancestors  who  were  in  a 
vast  number  of  cases,  and  ultimately  in  all, 
very  different  from  their  present  representa- 
tives; that  this  difference  is  due,  not  to  the 
total  extinction  of  the  previous  species  by 
"cataclysms,"  and  the  divine  creation  of  new 
ones,     as     Cuvier     maintained,     but    because 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  33 

previous   species   changed   in   adapting  them- 
selves to  a  changed  environment. 

But  Lamarck  has  another  claim  to  a  niche 
in  the  Pantheon  of  Science.  As  the  conviction 
gained  ground  that  species  were  not  fixed  and 
immutable  as  they  came  from  the  hands  of  an 
alleged  creator,  but  were  the  products  of  an 
evolutionary  development  extending  through 
immense  periods  of  time,  another  question 
arose  and  called  for  an  answer.  That  question 
was — "By  what  process?" 

Charles  Darwin  is  the  most  illustrious  of  all 
the  sons  of  science  because  he  answered  that 
question.  Lamarck  gave  an  answer,  and  the 
question  as  to  whether  that  answer  is  entitled 
to  be  incorporated  in  the  answer  of  Darwin, 
as  a  supplementary  amendment  is  sometimes 
made  a  part  of  the  motion,  still  divides  the 
biological  world  into  two  camps.  But  in  that 
controversy  between  the  Weismannians  and 
the  Neo-Lamarckians,  aptly  called  "The  Battle 
of  the  Darwinians,"  no  matter  what  becomes 
of  the  Lamarckian  factor,  all  are  agreed  that 
the  "Natural  Selection"  of  Darwin  is  impreg- 
nable. 

Lamarck's  theory  may  be  summed  up  as 
follows — 

(i.)  Every  change  in  the  environment  of 
animals  creates  for  them  new  needs. 


36  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

(2.)  These  new  needs  will  compel  these 
animals  to  adopt  new  habits  and  discard  some 
old  ones,  and  these  needs  and  habits  will  pro- 
duce and  develop  new  organs. 

.  (3.)     The  development  or  disappearance  of 
organs  depends  on  their  use  or  disuse. 

(4.)  The  effects  of  use  or  disuse,  acquired 
by  animals,  are  transmitted  by  heredity  to 
their  offspring. 

This  fourth  factor  has  split  the  biological 
world  since  Weismann  repudiated  it  in  1883. 

As  a  typical  case  of  the  operation  of  his 
theory,  Lamarck  gives  the  following:  "The 
serpents  having  taken  up  the  habit  of  gliding 
along  the  ground,  and  of  concealing  them- 
selves in  the  grass,  their  body,  owing  to  con- 
tinually repeated  efforts  to  elongate  itself  so 
as  to  pass  through  narrow  spaces,  has  acquired 
a  considerable  length  disproportionate  to  its 
size.  Moreover  limbs  would  have  been  very 
useless  to  these  animals,  and  consequently 
would  not  have  been  employed  because  long 
legs  would  have  interfered  with  their  need  of 
gliding,  and  very  short  legs,  not  being  more 
than  four  in  number,  would  have  been  in- 
capable of  moving  their  body.  Hence  the  lack 
of  use  of  these  parts  having  been  constant  in 
the  races  of  these  animals,  has  caused  the 
total  disappearance  of  these  same  parts,  al- 


LINNAEUS   TO    LAMARCK  37 

though  really  included  in  the  plan  of  organiza- 
tion of  animals  of  their  class." 

The  idea  of  the  serpent  getting  its  long 
body,  or  the  giraffe  its  long  neck,  or  shore 
birds  their  long  legs  by  "stretching,"  has 
brought  a  good  deal  of  ridicule  upon  Lamarck's 
theory,  and  that  part  of  it  has  never  been  taken 
very  seriously. 

This  mistake  however,  will  no  more  affect 
Lamarck's  title  to  a  place  among  the  im- 
mortals, than  will  the  equally  unfortunate 
theory  of  "pangenesis"  endanger  the  status  of 
his  still  greater  successor — Darwin. 

Lamarck's  glory  is  that  he  boldly  proclaimed 
and  largely  proved  the  general  theory  of  de- 
scent— biological  evolution. 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  a  consideration  of 
the  efforts  of  the  great  savants  who  have  suc- 
ceeded him,  to  ascertain  its  processes. 


III. 

DARWIN'S  NATURAL  SELECTION. 

In  the  year  1906,  the  paper  which  has  the 
largest  circulation  among  English  Socialists, 
"The  Clarion,'*  took  a  vote  of  its  readers  as  to 
whom  they  considered  to  be  the  greatest  man, 
the  man  who  had  contributed  most  to  the 
progress  of  the  race,  which  England  had  pro- 
duced. By  an  overwhelming  majority  the 
place  of  honor  went  to  Charles  Darwin.  That 
vote  was  as  much  a  vindication  of  English 
Socialists  as  it  was  of  the  man  whose  name 
has  become  almost  a  synonym  for  "modern 
science." 

Liebknecht,  in  his  "Biographical  Memoirs 
of  Karl  Marx,  speaking  of  Marx  and  himself, 
says:  "When  Darwin  drew  the  consequences 
of  his  investigations  and  presented  them  to 
the  public,  we  spoke  for  months  of  nothing  else 
but  Darwin  and  the  revolutionizing  power  of 
his  scientific  conquests.'* 

Leopold  Jacoby  writes  thus:  "The  same 
year  in  which  appeared  Darwin's  book  (1859) 
and  coming  from  a  quite  different  direction,  an 
identical   impulse   was    given   to   a   very   im- 

88 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  39 

portant  development  of  social  science  by  a 
work  which  long  passed  unnoticed,  and  which 
bore  the  title :  "Critique  of  Political  Economy" 
by  Karl  Marx — it  was  the  forerunner  of 
Capital.  What  Darwin's  book  on  the  ''Origin 
of  Species''  is  on  the  subject  of  the  genesis  and 
evolution  of  organic  life  from  non-sentient 
nature  up  to  Man,  the  work  of  Marx  is  on  the 
subject  of  the  genesis  and  evolution  of  associa- 
tion among  human  beings,  of  States,  and  the 
social  forms  of  humanity." 

Commenting  on  this  passage  of  Jacoby's 
Enrico  Ferri  says:  "And  this  is  why  Germany, 
which  has  been  the  most  fruitful  field  for  the 
development  of  the  Darwinian  theories,  is 
also  the  most  fruitful  field  for  the  intelligent, 
systematic  propaganda  of  socialist  ideas.  And 
it  is  precisely  for  this  reason  that  in  Berlin, 
in  the  windows  of  the  book-stores  of  the  so- 
cialist propaganda,  the  works  of  Charles  Dar- 
win occupy  the  place  of  honor  beside  those  of 
Karl  Marx." 

Frederick  Engels,  in  his  reply  to  Duehring, 
speaks  of  Darwin  as  follows :  "He  dealt  the 
metaphysical  conception  of  nature  the  heaviest 
blow  by  his  proof  that  all  organic  beings, 
plants,  animals,  and  man  himself,  are  the 
products  of  a  process  of  evolution  going  on 


40  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

through  millions  of  years.  In  this  connection 
Darwin  must  be  named  before  all  others." 

Again,  in  the  preface  to  the  "Communist 
Manifesto"  speaking  of  the  materialistic  con- 
ception of  history,  he  says :  "This  proposition, 
in  my  opinion,  is  destined  to  do  for  history 
what  Darwin's  theory  has  done  for  biology." 

And  speaking  at  the  grave-side  of  his 
illustrious  colleague — Marx,  he  said:  "Just  as 
Darwin  discovered  the  law  of  development  in 
organic  nature,  so  Marx  discovered  the  law  of 
development  in  human  society." 

Says  August  Bebel,  in  "Woman,"  "Marx, 
Darwin,  Buckle,  have  all  three,  each  in  his 
own  way,  been  of  the  greatest  significance  for 
modern  development  and  the  future  form  and 
growth  of  human  society  will,  to  an  extreme 
degree,  be  shaped  and  guided  by  their  teaching 
and  discoveries." 

And  Kautsky  in  his  work  on  ethics  declares 
that  Darwin's  discoveries  "belong  to  the 
greatest  and  most  fruitful  of  the  human  in- 
tellect, and  enable  us  to  develop  a  new  critique 
of  knowledge." 

Ernest  Untermann,  in  his  latest  work  "Marx- 
ian Economics,"  well  says:  "Marx  discovered 
the  specific  laws  of  social  development  among 
human  beings.  *  *  *  But  while  doing  this,  it 
never  occurred  to  him  to  disregard  the  results 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  41 

of  Darwin's  work.  On  the  contrary,  he  knew 
the  art  of  combining  Darwin's  results  with  his 
own,  without  doing  violence  to  either." 

This  evidence  of  the  general  consensus  of 
opinion  among  Socialist  scholars  as  to  the 
value  of  Darwin's  work  and  its  special  import- 
ance for  Socialism  could  easily  be  enlarged 
indefinitely.  But  enough  has  been  cited  to 
show  that  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  the  So- 
cialist philosophy  implies  a  knowledge  of 
Darwinian  theories. 

The  greatness  of  Darwin's  work  has  two 
aspects;  the  immense  impetus  he  gave  to  the 
general  theory  of  evolution,  and,  his  discovery 
of  its  main  process,  "natural  selection."  In 
the  popular  mind  this  distinction  is  lost  in 
confusion  and  a  great  army  of  popular  but 
ill-informed  expounders  have  added  to  the 
muddle.  The  two  things  although  closely  re- 
lated— aji  cause  and  effect — are  yet  quite 
distinct,  and  a  clearer  understanding  of  Dar- 
win's work  is  made  possible  by  the  distinction 
being  kept  in  mind.  The  honor  of  having  dis- 
covered "natural  selection"  Darwin  shares 
with  Wallace  only;  as  a  contributor  to  the 
theory  of  evolution,  he  is  one  of  a  long  and 
illustrious  line.  But  even  here  he  is  the  greatest 
of  them  all  precisely  because  of  his  specific  dis- 
covery  which,   by   explaining  how   evolution 


42  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

works  —  at  least  among  living  things, 
(biology) — has  made  the  general  theory  im- 
pregnable. 

Before  proceeding  to  that  specific  theory  let 
us  clearly  understand  that  evolution  has 
ceased  to  be  a  theory  merely,  it  is  also  a  well 
established  fact.  Anyone  who  denies  this  has 
no  part  or  lot  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  last 
half  century.  Such  a  one,  as  Professor 
Giddings  recently  said,  ''inhabits  a  world  of 
intellectual  shades.  He  cannot  grasp  the 
earthly  interests  of  the  twentieth  century." 

Every  science  in  the  biological  hierarchy  has 
contributed  its  quota  to  the  establishment  of 
the  theory  of  evolution,  and  that  theory  in 
return  has,  in  one  department  after  another, 
produced  order  and  system  where  before 
nothing  existed  but  a  conglomerate  mass  of 
apparently  unrelated  facts.  So  thoroughly 
has  the  theory  impregnated  every  branch  of 
science  that  an  intelligent  dentist  must  be  an 
evolutionist. 

The  chief  honors  fall  to  the  two  sciences 
Ontogeny  and  Phylogeny.  Ontogeny  deals 
with  the  history  of  the  germ  from  its  be- 
ginnning  as  an  egg  to  its  full  fruition  as  a  fully 
developed  individual  or  as  Haeckel  defines  it, 
"the  history  of  the  evolution  of  individual 
human  organisms."     Phylogeny  is  defined  by 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  43 

the  same  authority  as,  ''the  history  of  the  evo- 
lution of  the  descent  of  man,  that  is,  of  the 
evolution  of  the  various  animal  forms  through 
which,  in  the  course  of  countless  ages,  man- 
kind has  gradually  passed  to  its  present  form." 

I  mention  these  two  sciences  together  be- 
cause it  is  by  comparing  them  that  their  chief 
signifiance  appears.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
astonishing  discoveries  of  science  and  at  the 
same  time  one  of  the  most  convincing  proofs 
of  evolution,  that  the  whole  process  of  the 
development  of  the  human  race  from  the 
lowest  or  simplest  forms,  which  constitutes  the 
subject-matter  of  phylogeny,  is  reproduced  in 
brief  in  the  development  of  the  embryo  of  the 
individual.  This  remarkable  fact  Haeckel 
named  "the  biogenetic  principle." 

Darwin's  chief  claim  however  to  a  pedestal 
in  the  hall  of  fame  rests  on  his  discovery  of 
"natural  selection." 

During  his  memorable  voyage  on  "The 
Beagle"  he  observed  that  there  was  no 
essential  connection  between  a  species'  repro- 
ductive powers  and  the  number  of  its  popula- 
tion. As  this  discovery  plays  an  important 
part  in  his  theory  we  will  let  him  speak  for 
himself.  In  his  "Journal  of  Researches"  he 
gives  the  following  case,  with  his  conclusion: 
"I  was  surprised  to  find,  on  counting  the  eggs 


44  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

of  a  large  white  Doris  (a  kind  of  sea  slug) 
how  extraordinarily  numerous  they  were. 
From  two  to  five  eggs  (each  three  thousandths 
of  an  inch  in  diameter)  were  contained  in  a 
spherical  little  case.  These  were  arranged  two 
deep  in  transverse  rows  forming  a  ribbon.  The 
ribbon  adhered  to  the  rock  in  an  oval  sphere. 
One  which  I  found,  measured  nearly  twenty 
inches  in  length  and  half  inch  in  breadth.  By 
counting  how  many  balls  were  contained  in 
a  tenth  of  an  inch  in  the  row,  and  how  many 
rows  in  an  equal  length  of  the  ribbon,  on  the 
most  moderate  computation  there  were  six 
hundred  thousand  eggs.  Yet  this  Doris  was 
certainly  not  very  common:  although  I  was 
often  searching  under  the  stones  I  saw  only 
seven  individuals.  No  fallacy  is  more  common 
among  naturalists,  than  that  the  numbers  of 
an  individual  species  depend  on  its  powers  of 
propagation.'' 

This  instance  is  moderate  compared  with 
multitudes  of  others.  The  question  then  arises 
as  to  why,  of  such  a  numerous  progeny,  only 
a  sufficient  number  reach  adult  stage  as  will 
replace  the  parent  stock  so  that  population 
remains  practically  stationary. 

Here  Darwin  became  indebted  to  Dr. 
Malthus  who,  but  for  that  indebtedness  would 
have  been  forgotten  ere  this.     In  his  *'Essay 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  45 

on  Population"  Malthus  points  out  various 
''checks''  to  the  increase  of  population.  His 
main  theory  was  that  the  population  tends  to 
increase  more  rapidly  than  the  food  supply. 
The  Reverend  Doctor,  having  begotten  twelve 
children  of  his  own,  felt  "called''  to  point  out 
to  British  parents  the  desirability  and  even 
necessity  of  limiting  their  families  in  the 
interest  of  society.  Malthus  applied  his 
theory  to  human  society  where  it  is  palpably 
false.  Darwin  transferred  it  to  the  natural 
world  where  it  proved  to  be  a  great  truth. 
The  obvious  explanation  of  this  paradox  is: 
that  man,  by  agriculture  and  industry,  can 
increase  his  food  supply  to  a  greater  proportion 
than  any  probable  or  even  possible  increase  of 
population.  Animals  cannot;  their  food  supply 
is  beyond  their  control ;  they  have  no  power  to 
artificially  increase  the  supply.  This  difference 
totally  destroyed  the  value  of  Malthus'  book 
as  a  treatise  on  political  economy.  His  im- 
mortality is  assured  solely  because  he  ac- 
cidentally contributed  a  link  to  Darwin's 
chain. 

And  now  Darwin  has  travelled  on  his  great 
journey  thus  far:  Animals  propagate  enor- 
mously but  their  population  generally  does  not 
increase.  The  main  reason  for  this,  though 
there    are    others,    is,    that    their    number    is 


46  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

limited  by  the  amount  of  food  available. 
Therefore,  if  two  parents  produce  ten  thousand 
only  two  or  three  individuals  will  reach 
maturity :  the  rest  will  perish.  The  remainder 
of  the  problem,  which  still  remained  for  Dar- 
win to  solve,  was :  first,  is  there  any  law  which 
determines  which  shall  survive  and  which  shall 
be  destroyed;  and  second,  if  there  is  such  a 
law,  will  that  law  explain  and  thus,  at  the 
same  time,  prove,  the  origin  of  new  species? 
It  is  precisely  because  Darwin  solved  both 
points  of  this  tremendous  problem  with  a 
clear  and  irrefutable  affirmative  that  he  occu- 
pies the  foremost  place  in  the  annals  of  science. 

Professor  John  Fiske  said:  "There  is  one 
thing  which  a  man  of  original  scientific  or 
philosophical  genius  in  a  rightly  ordered  world 
should  never  be  called  upon  to  do.  He  should 
never  be  called  upon  to  earn  a  living ;  for  that 
is  a  wretched  waste  of  energy,  in  which  the 
highest  intellectual  power  is  sure  to  suflfer 
serious  detriment,  and  runs  the  risk  of  being 
frittered  away  into  hopeless  ruin." 

Whether  Fiske  was  right  or  wrong  the  only 
pertinent  point  here  is  that  Darwin  was 
spared  that  necessity. 

To  his  great  task  he  brought  a  patience  that 
is  almost  without  parallel.  One  of  his  bio- 
graphers, Grant  Allen,  tells  us  that :  "His  uncle 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  41 

and  father-in-law,  Josiah  Wedgwood,  sug- 
gested to  him  that  the  apparent  sinking  of 
stones  on  the  surface  might  really  be  due  to 
earthworm  castings.  So,  as  soon  as  he  had 
some  land  of  his  own  to  experiment  upon,  he 
began  in  1842,  to  spread  broken  chalk  over  a 
field  at  Down,  in  which,  twenty-nine  years 
later  in  1871,  a  trench  was  dug  to  test  the 
results.  "What  other  naturalist,''  asks  Allen, 
ever  waited  so  long  and  so  patiently  to  dis- 
cover the  upshot  of  a  single  experiment?  Is 
it  wonderful  that  a  man  who  worked  like  that 
should  succeed,  not  by  faith  but  by  logical 
power^  in  removing  mountains?" 

Darwin  studied  domestic  animals.  He  ob- 
served how  many,  and  how  widely  different, 
races  there  are  of  horses,  dogs,  swine,  poultry 
in  general  and  pigeons  in  particular.  In  each 
instance  the  many  varieties  are  derived  from 
an  original  common  stock,  as  domestic  fowls 
from  the  Indian  jungle  fowl,  and  pigeons  from 
the  old-world  rock-dove. 

''Derived,"  but  how — by  what  process?  In 
the  case  of  domestic  creatures  this  was  not 
difficult  to  answer.  It  is  accomplished  by 
breeders  "selecting"  the  individuals  to  be  bred 
froir.  In  the  case  of  pigeons,  which  Darwin 
laid  particular  stress  on  the  fancier  seemed  to 


48  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

be  able  to  obtain  almost  any  kind  of  a  bird  by 
selecting  as  parents  those  pigeons  which  had 
the  desired  characteristics  developed  to  the 
most  pronounced  degree,  and  then  again  se- 
lecting in  the  same  way  from  their  progeny. 
In  this  way  were  produced  birds  so  different 
from  each  other  and  their  ancestors  as  the 
tumbler,  the  fantail,  the  pouter,  and  about  a 
hundred  and  fifty  other  varieties.  The  same 
with  horses.  If  the  breeder  desired  draught 
horses,  he  selected  for  parents  those 
animals  with  massive  shoulders  and  sturdy 
limbs.  When  a  racer  wins  a  "classic'*  race,  it 
is  at  once  sent  to  the  stud-farm.  Although  in 
the  zenith  of  its  powers  it  races  no  more;  ,i,t* 
is  "selected"  for  another  and  more  important 
role — the  reproduction  and,  it  is  hoped,  the 
accentuation  of  the  characteristics  which 
enabled  it  to  outrun  its  competitors. 

All  this  impressed  on  Darwin's  mind  the 
importance  of  the  word  "selection,"  which 
appears  in  the  title  of  his  theory  and  the  sub- 
title of  his  epoch-making  book.  Could  it  be 
possible  that  nature  contained  some  principle 
or  combination  of  principles,  which  performed 
among  wild  animals  a  part  analogous  to  that 
of  the  breeder,  among  domestic  animals? 
Darwin  discovered  that  this  is  precisely  what 
takes  place. 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  49 

His  famous  theory  may  be  formulated  under 
the  three  following  heads : 
(i)     Heredity. 

(2)  Variation. 

(3)  The  struggle   for   existence,   with   Its 
resultant,  survival  of  the  fittest. 

Darwin  requires  very  little  of  heredity,  and 
what  he  does  ask  is  beyond  dispute.  It  is 
enough  for  his  theory  if  like  begets  like  and 
"figs  do  not  grow  on  thistles.'' 

Similarly  with  variation,  the  demands  of  his 
hypothesis  are  very  slight.  If  it  be  conceded 
that  variation  is  a  fact,  that  offspring  do  vary 
from  their  parents  and  each  other,  it  is 
enough.  And  who  will  dispute  this  in  a  world 
where  no  two  creatures  are  exactly  and  in  all 
particulars  alike?  The  apparent  contradiction 
that,  heredity  demands  likeness,  while  varia- 
tion requires  difference,  is  confined  to  the  sur- 
face— it  is  not  real.  The  likeness  is  genera^l 
while  the  difference  is  particular.  A  sheep  may 
be  born  with  shorter  or  longer  legs,  by  varia- 
tion; but  it  will  be  a  sheep  and  not  a  horse, 
by  heredity. 

As  an  example  of  the  working  of  the  theory 
let  us  take  Lamarck's  piece  de  resistance,  the 
giraffe.  Lamarck  says:  "We  know  that  this 
animal,  the  tallest  of  mammals,  inhabits  the 
interior  of  Africa,  and  that  it  lives  in  localities 


60  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

where  the  earth,  almost  always  arid  and 
destitute  of  herbage,  obliges  it  to  browse  on 
the  foliage  of  trees  and  to  make  continual 
efforts  to  reach  it.  It  has  resulted  from  this 
habit,  maintained  for  a  long  period  in  all  the 
individuals  of  its  race,  that  its  forelegs  have 
become  longer  than  the  hinder  ones,  and  that 
its  neck  is  so  elongated  that  the  giraffe,  with- 
out standing  on  its  hind  legs,  raises  its  head 
and  reaches  six  meters  in  height  (almost 
twenty  feet). 

Lamarck  thought  this  length  of  neck  was 
acquired  by  "continual  efforts  to  reach,''  or, 
as  Alfred  Russell  Wallace  puts  it  in  his  critic- 
ism of  Lamarck — "stretching."  Many  critics 
ventilated  their  wit  on  this  theory  of  La- 
marck's, under  the  impression  that  they  were 
lampooning  Darwin's  idea. 

They  made  a  blunder  similar  to  that  of  those 
critics  of  Utopian  Socialism  who  labor  under 
the  pleasing  delusion  that  they  are  riddling 
the  theories  of  Marx.  Professor  Ritchie  has 
preseived  a  couple  of  stanza's  by  a  witty 
Scotch  judge  who  aimed  his  poem  at  Darwin, 
but  hit  Lamarck. 

"A  deer  with  a  neck  that  was  longer  by  half 
Than  the  rest  of  his  family,  try  not  to  laugh. 
By  stretching  and  stretching  became  a  giraffe 
Which  nobody  can  deny. 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  51 

That  four-footed  beast  which  we  now  call  a 

whale, 
Held  his  hind-legs  so  close  that  they  grew  to 

a  tail, 
Which  he  uses  for  threshing  the  sea,  like  a 

flail, 
Which  nobody  can  deny." 

But  Darwin's  theory  is  altogether  inde- 
pendent of  the  "stretching"  idea.  The  causes 
and  origin  of  heredity  and  variation  are  up  to 
this  moment,  alike  wrapped  in  mystery.  But 
when  science  succeeds  in  penetrating  those 
secrets,  it  is  extremely  unlikely  that  Darwin's 
theory  will  be  seriously  weakened,  no  matter 
what  the  causes  may  prove  to  be. 

Now  about  the  giraffe.  We  will  suppose, 
for  the  sake  of  illustration,  two  giraffes,  a 
male  and  a  female,  whose  necks  are  precisely 
five  feet  long.  We  will  confine  our  illustration 
to  the  question  of  the  neck  alone.  We  will 
suppose  this  particular  pair  to  give  birth  to  a 
family  of  three.  First  comes  heredity.  All  we 
ask  of  heredity  is  that  the  young  shall  be 
giraffes,  not  camels  or  any  other  species ;  and 
this  heredity  guarantees.  Now  comes  varia- 
tion. As  this  is  an  ideal  case  for  the  purpose 
of  illustrating  the  theory,  we  will  have  one  of 
the    three    shorter-necked    than    the    parents, 


52  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

another  the  same  length,  while  the  third  has  a 
longer  neck — over  five  feet. 

Now  comes  the  struggle  for  existence.  When 
this  family  of  giraffes  is  fairly  grown  and  the 
new-comers  are  approaching  breeding  age — 
mark  the  importance  of  this  matter  of 
"breeding  age,"  for  the  problem  is  to  find  out 
how  nature  determines  which  shall  be  bred 
from — they  are  obliged  to  forage  for  them- 
selves. There  is  no  pasture  to  graze;  they 
live  in  what  is  almost  a  desert.  There  are  few 
shrubs;  scarcely  anything  but  fairly  high 
trees — from  ten  to  twenty  feet.  If  a  giraffe 
breeder  had  this  matter  in  hand  and  he  wished 
to  increase  the  length  of  the  giraffe's  neck,  the 
problem  would  be  simple.  He  would  select 
number  three  with  the  longest  neck,  pair  it 
with  the  longest  necked  member  of  the  op- 
posite sex  in  some  other  family  and  the  trick 
would  be  done.  But  this  is  in  Central  Africa, 
where  there  is  no  breeder  to  interfere,  and  the 
question  is:  can  nature  accomplish  the  same 
result  without  his  help? 

This  is  what  happens.  First  the  leaves  are 
eaten  from  all  the  lower  branches  as  they  are 
reached  with  the  least  effort.  Then  they  go 
higher  and  still  higher  until  the  point  is 
reached  where  number  one  with  the  shortest 
neck  cannot  reach  any  further  and  the  terrible 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  53 

struggle  for  existence  begins.  Number  two  sees 
no  danger  as  yet  and  number  three  has  things 
all  his  own  way.  But  with  short-necked  num- 
ber one,  a  tragedy  has  begun.  Every  day  now 
sees  the  food  further  out  of  his  reach  and  even 
number  two  is  obliged  to  reach  out  for  his 
supply.  The  breeding  time  is  approaching  but 
the  longer  necked  and  therefore  well-fed  and 
vigourous  females  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
this  wobbley  starving  creature,  and  the  longer 
necked,  well-fed  males  shun  the  short-necked 
starving  females.  If  the  starving  ones  mate, 
the  mother  dies  before  giving  birth  to  off- 
spring, or  she  cannot  get  nourishment  enough 
to  rear  her  progeny ;  in  either  case  there  is  no 
effective  succession.  So  the  longer-necked 
are  the  fittest  and  they  survive.  Thus  does 
nature  "select"  one  by  the  negative  process  of 
destroying  the  rest,  in  about  the  same  way  as 
a  man  "selects"  one  puppy  in  a  litter  by 
drowning  the  rest. 

In  the  case  of  the  puppies  we  may  say 
"artificial  selection ;"  in  the  case  of  the  giraffe 
it  is  "natural  selection."  And  this  theory, 
simple  as  it  may  seem  here,  revolutionized 
Biology. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  "natural"  selec- 
tion has  many  advantages  over  "artificial" 
selection.     The    breeder    may    be    mistaken; 


64  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

he  may  select  the  wrong  puppy  and  drown 
its  superior.  The  horse  that  won  the 
great  race  may  have  had  a  fleeter-footed  com- 
panion in  the  same  stable  had  the  trainer 
known  how  to  develop  his  possibilites.  The 
gardener  may  have  passed  the  best  root  or 
stem  through  carelessness.  But  nature  makes 
no  such  mistakes,  or  if  she  does  she  eventually 
redeems  them.  Her  method,  while  it  is  wholly 
fortuitous  and  unintelligent,  is  practically  in- 
fallible. The  condition  of  survival  is,  adapta- 
tion to  environment.  The  very  process  of 
selection  is,  in  itself,  a  sure  test  of  fitness. 
True,  moral  considerations  are  eliminated — at 
least  in  the  non-social  world— yet  nature  offers 
something  like  a  fair  field  and  no  favors.  When 
we  speak  of  nature's  favorites,  we  simply  mean 
those  who  are  best  fitted  to  meet  her  hard 
conditions. 

Take  a  row  of  celery  plants,  from  which 
future  seedlings  are  to  be  "selected." 

In  this  instance,  let  us  suppose,  the  quality 
desired  is  ability  to  resist  frost.  How  is  the 
gardener  to  know  which  of  fifty  plants  are  the 
"best"  in  this  respect.  He  has  no  method  of 
finding  out  with  any  degree  of  certainty.  But 
nature  comes  along  some  night  with  a  sharp 
frost  and  "selects''  ten  by  killing  forty  And 
the  very  act  of  this  "natural"  selection  proves 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  56 

that  these  ten  are  better  able  to  withstand  the 
frost  than  their  fellows. 

Breeders  of  white  sheep  who  supply  the 
white  wool  market  have  a  very  tangible  guide 
— they  kill  every  lamb  that  shows  the  least 
tinge  of  black.  But  even  here,  nature  is  not 
to  be  out-done.  In  Virginia  there  is— or  at 
least  was  in  Darwin's  day — a  wild  hog  of  pure 
black.  One  of  its  staple  foods  was  known  as 
the  "paint-root."  Any  hog  with  the  least 
speck  of  white  on  its  body  was  poisoned  by 
this  root  while  its  all-black  brothers  found  it 
a  health-sustaining  and  succulent  food. 

In  an  environment  which  remained  constant 
and  where  a  species  of  animals  had  reached  a 
population  which  strained  the  limits  of  sub- 
sistence— food  supply — those  oflfspring  which 
most  closely  resemble  their  parents,  who  had 
won  out  in  that  environment,  would  again 
succeed  and  be  selected.  While  if  the  envir- 
onment changed — became  warmer  or  colder 
for  example^ — those  descendants  which  hap- 
pened to  vary  in  a  direction  making  them 
better  able  to  cope  with  the  new  conditions 
would  be  selected  for  survival  as  against  those 
who  resembled  their  parents,  which  parents 
had  survived  in  their  day  because  they  were 
adapted  to  the  prior  environment. 

For  exfimple,  a  country  is  well  supplied  with 


56  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

water  and  it  is  as  a  consequence  fertile  and 
"green."  In  such  a  country  green  insects  and 
green  reptiles  will  be  selected,  because  a  green 
background  will  render  them  almost  invisible 
to  their  enemies.  Individuals  of  other  colors 
will  make  their  appearance  by  variation,  but 
they  will  be  such  plain  targets  to  their  enemies, 
they  will  be  devoured  before  they  reach 
breeding  age  and  have  a  chance  to  reproduC)^ 
the  variation. 

But  suppose  desiccation  (drying  up)  sets 
in.  The  country  loses  its  water  supply,  as 
Krapotkin  has  shown  to  have  been  the  case  in 
North  West  Mongolia  and  East  Turkestan, 
leading  to  the  enforced  exodus  of  the  barbar- 
ians. Now  green  will  disappear  and  brown  or 
yellow — say  brown — takes  its  place.  While  this 
change  will  not,  so  far  as  we  know,  cause  in- 
sects and  lizards  to  breed  brown  instead  of 
green,  it  will  ensure  the  survival  or  "selection" 
of  such  as  are  born  brown  and  the  destruction 
of  those  who  breed  true  to  their  green  ancestors. 
Now  every  atavistic  return  to  green  will  be 
mercilessly  weeded  out,  just  as,  when  the  coun- 
try was  well-watered  and  green,  every  sporadic 
production  of  brown  was  done  to  death. 

This  is  the  biological  foundation  of  that 
environment  philosoph}^  v/hich  nov/  pervades 
all  our  thinking.    Change  the  physical  environ- 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  57 

ment,  says  the  biologist,  and  the  species  will 
be  transformed.  Change  the  economic  envir- 
onment, says  the  Socialist,  and,  if  you  make 
the  right  change,  the  race  will  be  redeemed. 
Both  statements  rest  on  the  same  fundamental 
laws. 

As  the  many  and  highly  important  implica- 
tions of  this  theory,  are  fully  dealt  with  in 
subsequent  lectures  most  of  them  will  be 
passed  here. 

We  may  note  however,  that  whenever  any 
nation  in  the  modern  world,  produces,  in  the 
development  of  its  industry,  a  Socialistic 
variation,  that  new  feature  at  once  proves  its 
utility  and  is  "selected"  in  the  Darwinian 
sense,  because  it  constitutes  an  advantage  over 
the  previous  form  of  social  organization,  in 
that  particular.  This  is  the  reason  why  the 
trust — which  is  socialistic  and  revolutionary 
in  its  essential  tendences — is  always  victorious, 
in  spite  of  the  foolish  ravings  of  the  Hearst 
newspapers  and  the  antediluvian  twaddle  of 
William  Jennings  Bryan. 

But  Darwin's  crowning  achievement  is  that 
he  made  the  general  theory  of  evolution  im- 
pregnable by  thoroughly  and  conclusively 
demonstrating  it  in  his  own  field  as  a  naturalist. 
From  then  on  it  was  only  a  question  of  time 
as  to  when  its  application  would  be  universal. 


68  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

Socialism  may  be  defined  as  the  application 
of  the  theory  of  evolution  to  the  phenomena  of 
society.  This  is  precisely  what  Marx  and 
Engels  accomplished,  and  this  why  their  work 
is  so  fundamentally  opposed  to  the  con- 
ventional theories  and  theological  superstitious 
current  in  their  time,  and  so  fully  in  harmony 
with  all  the  latest  achievements  in  the  scientific 
world.  History  ceases  to  be  a  meaningless 
mass  of  war  and  famine,  bloodshed  and  cruelty. 
It  becomes  a  panorama  presenting  the  develop- 
ment of  society  according  to  laws  which  may 
be  understood  and  with  a  future  that  may  be 
measurably  predicted. 

It  develops  by  the  operation  of  forces  that 
no  man  or  class  can  wholly  stay  or  hinder.  The 
power  of  those  forces  and  the  direction  in 
which  they  are  now  making  has  been  well  set 
forth  by  Victor  Hugo  by  a  very  striking 
simile  in  the  following  passage: 

"We  are  in  Russia.  The  Neva  is  frozen. 
Heavy  carriages  roll  upon  its  surface.  They 
improvise  a  city.  They  lay  out  streets.  They 
build  houses.  They  buy.  They  sell.  They 
laugh.  They  dance.  They  permit  themselves 
anything.  They  even  light  fires  on  this  water 
become  granite.  There  is  winter,  there  is  ice 
and  they  shall  last  forever.  A  gleam  pale  and 
wan  spreads  over  the  sky  and  one  would  say 


DARWIN'S    NATURAL    SELECTION  59 

that  the  sun  is  dead.  But  no,  thou  art  riot 
dead,  oh  Liberty !  At  an  hour  when  they  have 
most  profoundly  forgotten  thee;  at  a  moment 
when  they  least  expect  thee,  thou  shall  arise, 
oh,  dazzling  sight!  Thou  shalt  shoot  thy 
bright  and  burning  rays,  thy  heat,  thy  life,  on 
all  this  mass  of  ice  become  hideous  and  dead. 
Do  you  hear  that  dull  thud,  that  crackling,, 
deep  and  dreadful  ?  'Tis  the  Neva  tearing  loose. 
You  said  it  was  granite.  See  it  splits  like  glass. 
'Tis  the  breaking  of  the  ice,  I  tell  you.  Tis  the 
water  alive,  joyous  and  terrible.  Progress  re- 
commences. 'Tis  humanity  again  beginning  its 
march.  Tis  the  river  which  retakes  its  course, 
uproots,  mangles,  strikes  together,  crushes 
and  drowns  in  its  waves  not  only  the  empire 
of  upstart  Czar  Nicholas,  but  all  of  the  relics 
of  ancient  and  modern  despotism.  That 
trestle  work  floating  away?  It  is  the  throne. 
That  other  trestle?  It  is  the  scaffold.  That 
old  book,  half  sunk?  It  is  the  old  code  of 
capitalist  laws  and  morals.  That  old  rookery 
just  sinking?  It  is  a  tenement  house  in  which 
wage  slaves  lived.  See  these  all  pass  by; 
passing  by  never  more  to  return ;  and  for  this 
immense  engulfing,  for  this  supreme  victory  of 
life  over  death,  what  has  been  the  power 
necessary?  One  of  thy  looks,  oh,  sun!  One 
stroke  of  thy  strong  arm,  oh,  labor!" 


IV. 

WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HEREDITY. 

The  weak,  untrained  brain  must  have  a 
conclusion.  It  cannot  reserve  its  decision  or 
render  an  open  verdict.  It  is  completely  at  sea 
in  the  scientific  world  where  the  most  pro- 
found savant  is  often  obliged  to  say,  "I  don't 
know."  In  a  crowded  courtroom,  ninety  per 
cent  of  the  spectators  have  made  up  their 
minds  that  the  prisoner  is  innocent  or  guilty 
before  the  first  witness  is  called  or  a  line  of 
the  evidence  has  been  read.  He  has  a  square 
jaw,  or  bushy  eyebrows,  or  thick  lips,  or  he 
shifts  uneasily  from  one  foot  to  the  other,  any 
or  all  which  proves  to  the  simpletons  back  of 
the  rail,  that  he  must  be  guilty  no  matter  what 
the  crime  is,  or  what  the  evidence  may  be.  If 
he  has  blue  eyes  and  fair  hair  and  mustache, 
or  a  pleasant  manner,  or  pretty  hands  and 
the  onlookers  were  to  decide  the  matter,  they 
would  hardly  convict  him  on  his  own  con- 
fession. In  England,  a  judge  is  not  placed  on 
the  bench  because  he  "stands  in"  with  a  ward 
boss,  but  because  of  his  wide  scholarship  and 
systematic  training,  and  the  reason  advanced 
w 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OP  HEREDITY  61 

for  this  method  is,  that  only  a  scientific  scholar 
can  reserve  his  opinion  until  all  the  evidence  is 
in  and  then,  if  the  case  demands  it,  render  an 
open  verdict. 

With  the  vexed  problem  of  heredity,  which 
has  been  so  much  to  the  fore  in  science  for  the 
last  twenty-four  years,  while  many  great 
thinkers  have  distinctly  taken  sides,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  in  many  points  of  great 
importance,  the  only  possible  verdict  on  the 
contentions  of  either  side,  is  one  of  "not 
proven/' 

But  although  this  controversy  has  split  the 
evolutionists  into  two  camps,  it  in  no  way 
compromises  the  evolution  theory  itself.  The 
controversy  is  based  on  the  admission  of  all 
the  parties  to  it,  that  evolution  is  granted, 
and  the  question  at  issue  involves  only  a  differ- 
ence as  to  how  the  acknowledged  results  are 
accomplished.  Evolution  is  no  longer  merely 
a  theory,  it  is  an  established  fact,  and  is  re- 
cognized as  such  by  all  who  live  in  an  intel- 
lectual atmosphere  belonging  to  this  side  of 
1859,  the  year  of  the  publication  of  the  "Origin 
of  Species.'' 

Neither  does  the  result  of  this  discussion 
threaten,  in  any  way,  the  validity  of  the  Dar- 
winian theory  of  "Natural  Selection."  All  the 
disputants  are  avowed  Darwinians,  and  dis- 


53  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

agree  only  as  to  whether  Darwin's  theory  is 
alone  sufficient  to  account  for  the  origin  of  new 
species. 

Professor  Packard,  Lamarck's  biographer, 
and  one  of  his  warmest  admirers,  at  the  close 
of  his  chapter  devoted  to  the  denial  of  "pure" 
Darwinism  says:  "We  must  never  forget  or 
under-estimate,  however,  the  inestimable  value 
of  the  services  rendered  by  Darwin,  who  by 
his  patience,  industry,  and  rare  genius  for  ob- 
servation and  experiment,  and  his  powers  of 
lucid  exposition,  convinced  the  world  of  the 
truth  of  evolution,  with  the  result  that  it  has 
transformed  the  philosophy  of  our  day.  We 
are  all  evolutionists,  though  we  may  differ  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  efficient  causes." 

There  are  now  three  possible  positions,  (i.) 
That  of  the  Lamarckians,  pure  and  simple, 
who  maintain  that  Lamarck's  theory  in  itself 
explains  all  the  phenomena,  and  that  Darwin's 
principle  of  selection  is  not  only  invalid  but 
superfluous.  This  school  is  practically  extinct, 
though  Packard  often  sails  to  its  very  edge  in 
his  efforts  to  defend  his  subject,  as  is  the  man- 
ner of  biographers.  (2.)  The  Neo-  (New)- 
Lamarckians  who  develop  Lamarck's  theory 
and  add  to  it  Darwin's  selective  principle  as  of 
greater,  equal,  or  secondary  importance,  ac- 
cording as  they  lean  the  more  strongly  to  Dar- 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OP  HEREDITY  63 

win  or  Lamarck.  This  position  held  the  field 
almost  alone,  until  Weismann  fired  his  open- 
ing gun  in  1883.  He  founded  (3)  the  Neo- 
Darwinian  school  which  repudiates  altogether 
the  Lamarckian  factor  of  the  hereditary  trans- 
mission of  acquired  characters,  and  maintains 
that  Darwin's  theory  is  able  to  dispense  with 
Lamarckian  ideas  of  use  and  disuse. 

As  Weismann  is  the  storm  center  of  the 
controversy  we  will  now  examine  his  theory. 

In  1883  Weismann  became  the  pro-Rector  of 
the  University  of  Freiburg  and  in  the  hall  of 
the  University,  in  June  of  that  year,  he  publicly 
delivered  his  inaugural  lecture  "On  Heredity." 
This  lecture  is  generally  regarded  as  the  first 
broadside  in  that  war  which  filled  with  its 
reverberations  the  scientific  magazines  of  the 
world  for  the  next  thirteen  years.     As  one 
writer   aptly   says,    "The   warring   scientists 
splashed  like  irate  cuttle-fishes   in  clouds  of 
their  own  ink."  About  1896  however,  the  public 
grew  tired  of  the  never-ending  flood  of  biolog- 
ical lore  on  what  looked  to  the  lay  mind  like 
an  insoluble  problem.   The  editors,  with  their 
fingers  on  the  public  pulse,  cried,  "A  plague 
on  both  your  houses,"  and  ^ent  the  savants 
to  seek  in  their  laboratories  the  victories  de- 
nied to  their  pens. 
As  a  matter  of  fact    however,  the  coming 


64  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

Struggle  was  foreshadowed  in  a  paper  read  by 
Weismann  at  the  meeting  of  the  Association 
of  the  German  Naturalists  at  Salzburg,  two 
years  earlier,  in  1881. 

This  paper  was  entitled  "The  Duration  of 
Life,"  and  the  subject  was  still  further  devel- 
oped in  an  academic  lecture,  in  1883,  on  "Life 
and  Death/'  These  two  biological  contribu- 
tions not  only  indicated  the  foundations  of 
Weismann's  theory,  but  they  threw  a  very 
brilliant  light  in  certain  very  dark  places. 
Weismann  not  only  took  up,  but  he  solved 
the  hitherto  obscure  question  of  the  origin  of 
death. 

Johannes  Muller  had,  as  early  as  1840,  re- 
jected the  prevailing  hypothesis  which  held 
the  death  of  animals  to  be  due  to  "the  influ- 
ences of  the  organic  environment,  which  grad- 
ually wear  away  the  life  of  the  individual." 
Muller  argued  that  if  this  were  so  "the  or- 
ganic energy  of  an  individual  would  steadily 
decrease  from  the  beginning."  Everybody 
knows,  however,  that  in  spite  of  the  wear  and 
tear  caused  by  the  "environment,"  be  it  or- 
ganic or  inorganic,  the  volume  of  life  in- 
creases, until  a  certain  stage  is  reached  in 
all  animals.  But  Muller  had  failed  to  fill  the 
gap  his  criticism  had  created. 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HEREDITY  65 

This  problem  Weismann  solved  by  analys- 
ing the  methods  of  reproduction  among  ani- 
mals. These  generally  speaking  are  two;  sex- 
ual, and  non-sexual  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
termed,  a-sexual.  This  latter  form  is  the  mode 
that  prevails  at  the  bottom  of  the  organic 
scale  —  among  the  protozoa,  animals  con- 
sisting of  a  single  cell.  This  method  has  a 
variety  of  forms  which  are  classified  by  Hae- 
ckel  as  (i)  self-division;  (2)  formation  of 
buds;  (3)  the  formation  of  germ-cells  or 
spores.  We  shall  h^re  deal  only  with  the  first, 
self-division,  or  fission,  which  is  the  most  uni- 
versal of  all  methods  of  propagation,  being 
the  progress  by  which  the  individual  cells 
which  compose  all  the  higher  animals  multi- 
ply themselves.  This  is  the  method  vital  to 
Weismann's  theory  and  the  other  two  are  no 
more  than  distinct  modifications  of  fission. 

When  a  Moneron  or  an  Amoeba  reaches  a 
certain  size,  it  begins  to  pinch  in  the  middle 
like  a  tightly-laced  corset.  This  increases  until 
the  creature  divides  into  two  equal  halves. 
Each  of  these  halves  becomes  a  complete  in- 
dividual which  continues  to  thrive  until  the 
next  division  takes  place. 

What  Weismann  observed  as  the  most  sign- 
ificant thing  about  this  was  that  in  this  pro- 
cess   and    among    these   unicellular    (single 


66  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

celled)  organisms  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
natural  death.  Accidental  death  is  wholesale 
in  its  proportions,  but  no  Moneron  ever  dies 
of  old  age.  Astounding  as  it  may  seem  to  the 
layman,  the  race-old,  world-wide  idea  that 
death  is  "essential  to  the  very  nature  of  life 
Itself  is  here  totally  and  indisputably  over- 
thrown. 

**I  pointed  out,"  says  Weismann,  in  the  sec- 
ond lecture  and  referring  to  the  first  "that  we 
could  not  speak  of  natural  death  among  uni- 
cellular animals,  for  their  growth  has  no  term- 
ination which  is  comparable  with  death.  The 
origin  of  new  individuals  is  not  connected 
with  the  death  of  the  old;  but  increase  by 
division  takes  place  in  such  a  way  that  the 
two  parts  into  which  an  organism  separates 
are  exactly  equivalent  to  one  another,  and 
neither  of  them  is  older  or  younger  than  the 
other.  In  this  way  countless  numbers  of  in- 
dividuals arise,  each  of  which  is  as  old  as  the 
species  itself,  while  each  possesses  the  capa- 
bility of  living  on  indefinitely,  by  means  of 
divisions." 

Among  the  Metazoa,  i.  e.,  multicellular  or 
many  celled  animals,  this  immortality  of  the 
individual  disappears.  "Here,  also,"  says  Weis- 
mann, "reproduction  takes  place  by  means  of 
cell-division,  but  every  cell  does  not  possess 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HEREDITY  07 

the  power  of  reproducing  the  whole  organism. 
The  cells  of  the  organism  are  differentiated 
into  two  essentially  different  groups,  the  re- 
productive cells  —  ova  or  spermatozoa  —  and 
the  somatic  cells,  or  cells  of  the  body.  The 
immortality  of  the  unicellular  organism  has 
passed  over  to  the  former  —  the  reproductive 
cells  —  the  others  must  die,  and  since  the 
body  of  the  individual  is  chiefly  composed  of 
them,  it  must  die  also." 

And  so  death  came  into  the  world,  not  by 
sin,  as  the  Genesis  legend  reports,  but  through 
sex ;  a  most  astonishing  conclusion,  it  may  be, 
but  one  from  which  there  is  apparently  no 
escape.  Immortality  still  remains,  it  is  true, 
but  it  is  not  the  immortality  of  the  conscious 
self.  Positive  science,  nothwithstanding  all  its 
glorious  gifts,  has  dealt  a  terrible  blow  to  those 
gorgeous  dreams  of  primitive  men  and  modern 
mystics :  those  hopes  and  longings  which  have 
sustained  millions  of  our  race  in  hours  of 
supreme  sorrow;  a  blow  which  not  even  the 
bravest  has  been  able  to  receive  without  flinch- 
ing. The  only  immortality  of  which  science 
has  any  surety  is  that  of  these  unconscious 
single  cells,  which  make  possible  the  repro- 
duction of  the  species. 

Weismann,  then,  divides  the  cells  which 
compose  the  bodies  of  the  higher  animals,  in- 


68  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANtO 

eluding  man,  into  two  distinct  kinds;  the 
somatic,  or  body  cells  and  the  germ,  or  re- 
productive cells.  These  germ  cells  are,  so  to 
speak,  batteries  in  which  are  stored  a  sub- 
stance which  Weismann  calls  germ-plasm. 
A  minutely  small  portion  of  this  germ-plasm 
from  an  individual  of  one  sex,  mixed  with  a 
similar  portion  from  an  individual  of  the  other 
will  produce  a  new  individual.  But  —  and 
here  comes  the  keystone  of  Weismann's  arch 
—  only  a  portion  of  the  mixed  germ-plasm  is 
used  up  in  the  composition  of  the  new  indi- 
vidual; the  rest  is  stored  away  in  the  germ- 
cells  of  the  new  individual  for  further  repro- 
duction when  the  time  arrives.  The  only  rela- 
tion that  this  reserved  germ-plasm  has  with 
the  body  cells  of  the  new  individual  is  that  it 
is  provided  by  them  with  room  and  board. 

Thus,  according  to  Weismann,  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  there  is  an  unbroken  stream 
of  germ-plasm,  and  this  constitutes  his  cele- 
brated theory  of  "The  Continuity  of  Germ- 
Plasm."  Granted  this  theory  as  a  premise, 
and  Weismann's  conclusions  cannot  be  gain- 
said. This  germ-plasm  being  the  sole  "carrier 
of  heredity,"  nothing  that  happens  to  the  so- 
matic or  body  cells  can  be  transmitted  to  the 
progeny. 

Darwin  had  put  forward  a  theory  of  hered- 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HEREDITY  69 

ity  which  he  called  "Pangenesis,"  which  made 
out  a  good  case  for  the  admission  of  the  Lam- 
arckian  factor.  According  to  this  theory  all 
the  somatic  or  body  cells  give  forth  still 
smaller  cells  which  he  calls  "gemmules.'* 
These  gemmules  are  collected,  by  some  pro- 
cess not  explained,  in  the  reproductive  organs. 
Here  they  are  in  packets,  and  these  "packets 
of  gemmules"  are  "the  carriers  of  heredity.'* 
One  can  easily  see  how  by  this  process  the 
effects  of  use  and  disuse  would  be  transmiss- 
ible for  an  organ  shrunk  by  disuse  would  not 
be  capably  represented  by  an  efficient  delega- 
tion of  gemmules  at  the  reproductive  head- 
quarters. 

Speaking  of  this  theory,  Grant  Allen  in  his 
biography  of  Darwin  says,  "Let  not  the  love 
of  the  biographer  deceive  us.  Not  to  mince 
matters,  it  was  his  one  conspicuous  failure, 
and  is  now  pretty  universally  admitted  as 
such."  It  must  be  remembered  however,  that 
Darwin  was  fully  aware  of  its  purely  specu- 
lative character  and  with  his  usual  caution 
entitled  it  the  "Provisional  Hypothesis  of 
Pangenesis." 

Romanes,  one  of  Weismann's  ablest  critics, 
compares  Weismann's  theory  with  Darwin's, 
and  while  he  refuses  to  defend  Pangenesis 
against  Weismann's  charge  that  it  is  a  wholly 


70  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

unsupported  speculation,  he  replies  by  con- 
tending that  the  germ-plasm  theory  lives  in 
precisely  the  same  kind  of  a  glass  house. 

However  that  may  be,  it  is  quite  clear  that 
the  germ-plasm  theory  completely  shuts  out 
the  Lamarckian  factor  of  evolution  in  all  cases 
where  propagation  is  sexual. 

"But,"  say  the  Neo-Lamarckians,  "Darwin- 
ism in  itself,  merely  assumes  variations  with- 
out attempting  to  explain  their  origin.  Nat- 
ural selection  only  explains  the  survival  of 
the  fittest;  it  tells  us  nothing  of  what  Prof. 
Cope  calls  the  'Origin  of  the  Fittest/  There 
must  be  variation  before  selection,  whence 
then,  comes  this  variation?"  To  this  question 
Weismann  has  a  ready  reply.  "Variation  is 
due  to  the  blending  of  two  wholly  different 
kinds  of  germ-plasm  at  conception,  producing 
at  birth  a  result  that  is  not,  and  cannot  be, 
wholly  like?  the  contributor  of  either." 

And  now,  at  last,  the  great  German  is  in  a 
corner.  If  all  variations  are  due  to  congenital 
characters  only,  and  these,  of  course,  are  only 
possible  because  of  the  combinations  secured 
by  sexual  reproduction,  how  do  variations 
arise  among  non-sexual  organisms  where  such 
combinations  cannot  exist? 

This  is  indeed,  a  poser.  But  any  rejoicing 
by  Weismann's  opponents  is  quite  premature. 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HERBDITT  71 

The  sagacity  which  set  those  opponents  by 
the  ears  is  still  available.  There  is  no  attempt 
to  untie  that  knot;  Weismann  cuts  it  with  a 
knife.  He  empties  his  antagonist's  sails  by  a 
smiling  and  gracious  surrender.  Below  the 
sexually  reproducing  animals,  he  concedes  the 
operation  of  the  Lamarckian  factor.  In  that 
unicellular  world  it  is  not  a  special  cell  that 
is  passed  on  but  the  individual  itself  is  con- 
tinued, and  of  course  any  character  acquired 
by  the  individual  will  be  preserved  along  with 
the  individual. 

Thus  then  the  region  of  controversy  is  lim- 
ited to  sexually  reproducing  organisms  and 
we  come  to  the  field  where  the  fiercest  fight 
was  made.  Do  these  organisms  transmit  by 
heredity  those  characters  or  peculiarities  ac- 
quired by  the  individual  during  its  own  life- 
time? To  this  question  the  Neo-Lamarckians 
gave  a  positive  affirmative,  which  Weismann 
met  with  an  unwavering  denial. 

Weismann  challenged  his  opponents  to  pro- 
duce a  single  demonstration  of  such  a  trans- 
mission. Here  let  us  be  clear  as  to  what  is 
meant  by  an  acquired  character.  For  illustra- 
tion, let  us  suppose  a  father  leaves  his  son  an 
estate  of  a  thousand  acres.  That  is  inherit- 
ance. If  the  son  leaves  his  son  the  same  one 
thousand  acres,  that  is  still  inheritance.    But 


72  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

if  that  son  increases  the  estate,  during  his 
life-time  to  two  thousand,  the  second  thou- 
sand is  an  "acquired  character"  of  a  property 
nature.  There  the  analogy  ceases  for  there  is 
no  dispute  as  to  his  ability  to  transmit  both 
thousands  to  his  heirs  by  inheritance. 

But  with  "acquired  characters"  of  a  biolog- 
ical nature,  W^ismann  maintains  this  to  be 
impossible.  Many  specific  instances  were  put 
forward  in  refutation  of  this  contention.  Her- 
bert Spencer  cited  the  case  of  the  supposed 
degeneration  of  the  little  toe  in  civilized  man 
as  a  result  of  the  shoe  wearing  habit.  This 
it  was  urged  could  only  have  occurred  through 
the  transmission  of  acquired  characters  and 
not  by  natural  selection  as  this  diminished  toe 
could  not  be  of  any  value  in  the  struggle  for 
existence. 

But  it  was  shown  by  measuring  the  feet  of 
savages,  who  do  not  wear  shoes,  and  whose 
ancestors  never  wore  them,  that  the  small 
toes  of  savages  had  degenerated  quite  as 
much. 

Then  Cesare  Lombroso  entered  the  arena 
leading  a  camel.  According  to  the  Italian 
criminologist,  the  camel's  hump  had  been  first 
acquired  by  bearing  loads  and  then  transmit- 
ted by  heredity.  From  the  fact  that  the  camel 
and  the  llama,  which  is  smooth  backed,  have 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HEREDITY  73 

something  in  common,  he  concludes  that 
camels  are  really  llamas  that  have  recently 
acquired  a  hump  in  the  performance  of  their 
labors.  Lombroso  also  supported  his  hump 
theory  by  some  statements  about  Hottentot 
women  having  developed  callouses  on  their 
hips  by  carrying  their  children  on  their  backs. 
Unfortunately  all  Lombroso's  ingenuity  was 
wasted  for  we  happen  to  possess  the  geolog- 
ical record  of  the  camel  in  good  condition,  and 
from  this  history  we  know  that  the  "ship  of 
the  desert"  had  his  hump  before  the  human 
race  appeared  when  according  to  Lombroso 
he  should  have  been  a  smooth-backed  llama. 
Disappointed  as  Weismann's  critics  were  it 
was  hardly  feasible  to  argue  that  the  camel 
had  gotten  his  hump  in  those  early  times  by 
placing  loads  on  his  own  back. 

It  was  clearly  seen  that  if  a  case  of  the 
transmission  of  a  mutilation  could  be  estab- 
lished, Weismann's  theory  would  be  thereby 
demolished.  A  remarkable  attempt  was  made 
in  this  direction  in  1887  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Association  of  the  German  Naturalists  at 
Wiesbaden.  To  that  dignified  gathering  came 
Dr.  Zacharias  with  a  number  of  tailless  cats. 
It  was  asserted  that  these  cats  had  no  tails 
because  their  mother  had  lost  her  tail  through 
having  it  run  over  by  a  cart  wheel.    The  ex- 


74  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

amination  of  these  specimens  proved  an  enter- 
taining diversion  from  the  regular  proceed- 
ings, and  Prof.  Eimer  took  them  seriously 
enough  to  refer  to  them  in  a  later  work  as  "a 
valuable  instance  of  the  transmission  of  mu- 
tilations." 

Weismann,  however,  refused  to  be  put 
down.  He  insisted  that  in  the  absence  of  ab- 
solute certainty  as  to  the  cart  wheel  incident, 
they  did  not  fulfill  the  first  condition  of  scien- 
tific evidence,  and  Dr.  Zacharias  wisely  ad- 
mitted later,  that  this  point  was  well  taken. 
Prof.  Poulton  had  described  certain  cats  with 
extra  toes  which  he  had  kept  under  surveil- 
lance for  seven  generations.  "It  would  be 
equally  justifiable,"  says  Weismann.  "to  de- 
rive cats  with  extra  toes  from  an  ancestor 
whose  toes  had  been  trodden  on,  as  to  derive 
the  tailless  cats  of  the  Isle  of  Man  from  an 
ancestor  of  which  the  tail  had  been  cut  off 
by  a  cart  passing  over  it,  and  thus  to  regard 
the  existence  of  the  race  as  a  proof  of  the 
transmission  of  mutilations." 

Again  Weismann  points  out  that  the  ab- 
sence of  a  tail  may  not  be  owing  to  the  muti- 
lation of  the  mother  but  to  the  inherent  tail- 
lessness  of  an  unknown  father.  He  proceeds 
to  relate  how  during  the  year  that  Dr.  Zacha- 
rias came  with  his  collection,  "My  friend,  Prof. 


WEISMANN'S  THEORY  OF  HEREDITY  75 

Schottlius  brought  me  a  kitten  with  an  in- 
nate rudimentary  tail,  which  he  had  accident- 
ally discovered  as  one  of  a  family  of  kittens 
at  Waldkirch,  a  small  town  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  Black  Forest.  A  closer  investiga- 
tion resulted  in  the  following  rather  unex- 
pected discovery.  For  some  time  past,  tailless 
kittens  have  frequently  appeared  in  the  fam- 
ilies of  many  different  mother  cats  at  Wald- 
kirch,  and  this  fact  is  explained  in  the  follow- 
ing manner.  A  clergyman,  who  lived  for  some 
time  at  Waldkirch  had  married  an  English 
lady  who  possessed  a  tailless  male  Manx  cat. 
The  probability  that  all  the  tailless  cats  in 
Waldkirch  are  m.ore  or  less  distant  descend- 
ants of  that  male  cat  amounts  almost  to  cer- 
tainty. Since  a  male  Manx  cat  has  reached  the 
Black  Forest,  it  might  equally  well  arrive  at 
some  other  place." 

This  very  same  year  a  popular  scientific 
journal  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  transmission 
theory  with  the  following  incident  purporting 
to  have  taken  place  22  years  before,  in  1864. 
"A  pregnant  merino  sheep  broke  its  right  fore- 
leg about  two  inches  above  the  knee-joint;  the 
limb  was  put  in  splints  and  healed  a  long 
time  before  the  following  March,  when  the 
annimal  produced  young.  The  lamb  possessed 
a  ring  of  black  wool  from  two  to  three  inches 


78  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

in  breadth  round  the  place  at  which  the  moth- 
er's leg  had  been  broken,  and  upon  the  same 
leg/*  When  this  incident  was  related  to  Weis- 
mann,  he  replied,  "It  is  a  pity  that  the  black 
wool  was  not  arranged  in  the  form  of  the  in- 
scription *to  the  memory  of  the  fractured  leg 
of  my  dear  mother/  " 

Writing  in  the  following  year  Weismann 
says,  "Furthermore,  the  mutilations  of  certain 
parts  of  the  human  body,  as  practised  by  dif- 
ferent nations  from  time  immemorial,  have 
not  in  a  single  instance,  led  to  the  malforma- 
tion or  reduction  of  the  parts  in  question. 
Such  hereditary  effects  have  been  produced 
neither  by  circumcision  ngr  the  removal  of 
the  front  teeth,  nor  the  boring  of  holes  in  the 
lips  or  nose,  nor  the  extraordinary  artificial 
crushing  and  crippling  of  the  feet  of  Chinese 
women.  No  child  among  any  of  the  nations 
referred  to  possesses  the  slightest  trace  of 
these  mutilations  when  born ;  they  have  to  be 
acquired  anew  in  each  generation/' 

While  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  much  in 
Weismann's  position  Jacks  experimental  de- 
monstration, it  is  equally  true  that  when  the 
heat  of  the  discussion  somewhat  subsided,  his 
theories  were  well  to  the  fore,  and  they  have 
since  secured  a  wide  acceptance  among  com- 
petent authorities.   It  is  hardly  to  be  expected 


WEISMANN'g  THEJO^Y  OF  HEREDITY  ^-^ 

that  his  two  greatest  critics,  Spencer  and 
Haeckel,  would  look  with  much  favor  on  a 
theory  the  acceptance  of  which  would  make 
necessary  the  re-writing  of  those  many  vo- 
lumes which  constitute  their  lifework.  Lan- 
kester,  himself  no  mean  authority,  in  trans- 
lating Haeckel's  "History  of  Creation,"  feels 
constrained  to  say  in  the  preface,  "I  feel  it 
due  to  myself  to  state  that  I  do  not  agree 
with  him  as  to  a  very  large  part  of  his  views 
on  classification,  and  as  to  his  belief  in  the 
necessity  of  assuming  the  'transmissibility  of 
acquired  characters/  Readers  who  have  gained 
an  interest  in  these  questions  from  the  brief 
statements  of  the  present  work  must,  with- 
out assuming  that  Professor  Haeckers  judg- 
ment is  final,  go  on  to  study  for  themselves 
the  works  of  Weismann  and  others  which  are 
mentioned  with  perfect  fairness  in  these 
pages." 

And  Joseph  McCabe,  the  translator  of  his 
"Riddle  of  the  Universe,"  and  "Last  Words 
on  Evolution,"  has  this  to  say  in  his  intro- 
duction to  the  latter,  written  two  years  ago, 
'To  closer  students,  who  are  at  times  impa- 
tient of  the  Lamarckian  phraseology  of  Haec- 
kel —  to  all,  in  fact,  who  would  like  to  see 
how  the  same  evolutionary  truths  are  ex- 
pressed without  reliance  on  the  inheritance 


78  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

of  acquired  characters,  —  I  may  take  the  op- 
portunity to  say  that  I  have  translated  for  the 
same  publishers,  Professor  Guenther's  "Dar- 
winism and  the  Problems  of  Life,"  which  will 
shortly  be  in  their  hands." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  older  view  is 
much  less  favorable  to  the  Socialist  position 
in  sociology  than  the  later  theory  of  Weis- 
mann.  It  is  a  matter  of  some  satisfaction 
that  so  great  a  critic  as  Romanes  concedes  the 
feasibility  of  Weismann's  theory  while  reject- 
ing some  of  the  conclusions  which  he  draws 
from  it.  "If  Weismann's  theory  is  true,"  says 
Prof.  David  Starr-Jordan,  "the  whole  litera- 
ture of  sociology  will  have  to  be  rewritten!" 
And  another  writer  insisted  that  Weismann 
had  reopened  the  case  for  Socialism. 

If  it  were  true  that  the  terrible  results  of 
the  degrading  conditions  forced  upon  the 
dwellers  in  the  slums  were  transmitted  to  their 
children  by  heredity,  until  in  a  few  genera- 
tions they  became  fixed  characters,  the  hopes 
of  Socialists  for  a  regenerated  society  would 
be  much  more  difficult  to  realize.  In  that  case 
these  unfortunate  creatures  would  continue  to 
act  in  the  same  discouraging  way  for  several 
generations,  no  matter  how  their  environment 
had  been  transformed  by  the  corporate  action 
of  society.  This  much  at  any  rate,  Weismann 


WEISMANN'S   THEORY  OF  HEREDITY  79 

has  done  for  us,  he  has  scientifically  destroyed 
that  lie. 

In  this  respect,  independent  sociological  ex- 
periments and  investigations  have  arrived  at 
the  same  conclusions  as  Weismann.  Prof. 
John  R.  Commons  by  careful  study,  reached 
the  following  conclusions:  That  1.75  per  cent 
of  the  population  of  the  United  States  are 
congenital  defectives;  that  3.25  per  cent  are 
induced  defectives,  that  is,  they  have  not  in- 
herited their  deficiency;  that  2  per  cent  are 
possessed  of  genius  and  will  make  their  way 
under  the  hardest  conditions;  that  2  per  cent 
are  below  the  Aryan  brain  level ;  and  that  the 
remaining  91  per  cent  are  normal  persons  who 
are  neither  good  nor  bad,  brilliant  nor  stupid, 
criminal  nor  virtuous,  and  whose  future  is  en- 
tirely decided  by  the  environment  which  sur- 
rounds them  during  the  first  fifteen  years  of 
their  life. 

Herman  Whittaker,  a  magazine  contributor, 
states  that  during  eight  years  in  Canada  2,000 
boys  taken  from  the  London  slums  by  Dr. 
Barnado  passed  under  his  observation  on  a 
farm  colony.  And  although  most  of  them  had 
served  terms  in  jail,  not  more  than  one  per 
cent  reverted  to  their  own  former  habits,  or 
the  habits  of  their  parents. 

When  it  is  charged  that  a  transformed  so- 


80  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

cial  environment  will  not  solve  the  problem 
presented  by  the  slum,  the  sweatshop  and  the 
jail,  as  Socialists  assert,  we  are  justified  in 
nailing  the  statement  as  false,  and  a  libel  on 
human  nature.  And  in  so  doing,  we  are  not 
sentimental  dreamers  of  dreams,  crying  for 
the  moon,  but  rigid  analysts  and  investigat- 
ors, and,  as  Lassalle  once  proudly  said,  "We 
have  behind  us  the  science  and  the  learning 
of  our  day/' 


V. 
DE  VRIES^  "MUTATION." 

Orthodoxy  received  the  most  stunning  blow 
ever  given  it,  at  the  hands  af  Charles  Darwin, 
and  it  is  ever  on  the  lookout  for  an  opportun- 
ity to  make  reprisals.  It  is  only  necessary  for 
some  fledgling  to  challenge  Darwin's  theory 
of  the  origin  of  coral  reefs  and  offer  some 
grotesque  assumption  in  its  place,  and  it  is  at 
once  announced  from  a  thousand  pulpits  that 
Darwinism,  —  that  enemy  of  God  and  man  — 
is  dead. 

Hugo  DeVries,  however,  could  hardly  be 
called  a  fledgling,  and  the  supporters  of  Dar- 
win had  real  cause  for  apprehension,  it  would 
seem,  when  the  rumor  gained  ground  that  no 
less  a  person  than  the  Amsterdam  professor 
had  overthrown  Darwin's  theory,  and  substi- 
tuted one  of  his  own. 

Alas,  this  latest  "death  of  Darwinism"  was 
no  more  fatal  than  its  numerous  predecessors, 
as  the  following  quotation  from  DeVries  him- 
self will  show: 

"My  work  claims  to  be  in  full  accord  with 
the  principles  laid  down  by  Darwin."    And 

81 


82  EVOLUTION.   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

again,  "To  Darwin  was  reserved  the  task  of 
bringing  the  theory  of  common  descent  to  its 
present  high  rank  in  scientific  and  social  phi- 
losophy." And,  "Notwithstanding  all  these 
apparently  unsurmountable  difficulties,  (ab- 
sence of  experimental  evidence  since  gather- 
ed) Darwin  discovered  the  great  principle 
which  rules  the  evolution  of  organisms.  It  is 
the  principle  of  natural  selection.  It  is  the 
sifting  out  of  all  organisms  of  minor  worth 
through  the  struggle  for  life." 

The  greater  part  of  the  adverse  criticism, 
aimed  at  Darwinism  applies  only  to  the  ex- 
travagant claims  put  forward  by  his  over- 
enthusiastic  disciples;  claims  not  to  be  found 
in  the  works  of  Darwin  himself.  As  we  shall 
see  later,  one  of  the  greatest  offenders  in  this 
respect  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  co-dis- 
coverer of  the  selection  theory  —  Alfred  Rus- 
sell Wallace." 

Of  all  the  mischievous  misconceptions  of 
Darwin's  theory  none  have  worked  so  much 
harm  as  that  which  regards  natural  selection 
as  the  active  and  efficient  cause  of  evolution. 
Although,  evolution  is  an  established  fact,  our 
knowledge  of  its  processes  are  incomplete  and 
must  always  remain  so  until  we  have  solved 
that  most  vexed  of  all  biological  problems,  the 
"causes  of  variation." 


DE  VMES'    "MUTATION"  33 

As  to  the  nature  of  these  causes,  natural 
selection  is  dumb.  For  its  purpose,  variation 
is  simply  assumed  to  be  a  fact,  and  Darwin's 
acknowledged  ignorance  as  to  how  variation 
IS  brought  about  is  expressed  in  the  term 
"spontaneous  variation."  Until  variation  has 
played  its  part  by  producing  new  and  various 
forms,  selection  has  no  function  or  office  to 
perform.  Then  it  simply  decides  which  forms 
shall  survive  by  destroying  the  rest.  As  Wi- 
gand  has  pointed  out,  selection  does  not  do 
more  than  determine  the  survival  of  what  is 
offered  to  it,  and  does  not  create  anything 
new.  As  DeVries  very  strikingly  puts  it,  "It 
is  only  a  sieve,  and  not  a  force  of  nature,  no 
direct  cause  of  improvement,  as  many  of  Dar- 
win's adversaries,  and  unfortunately  many  of 
his  followers  also,  have  so  often  asserted.  It 
is  only  a  sieve  which  decides  which  is  to  live 
and  which  is  to  die  ...  .  With  the  single  steps 
of  evolution  it  has  nothing  to  do.  Only  after 
the  step  has  been  taken,  the  sieve  acts,  elimi- 
nating the  unfit.''  Thus  Prof.  Cope's  point 
that  Darwin's  theory  does  not  explain  the 
"origin"  of  the  fittest,  is  well  taken,  or  as  Mr. 
Arthur  Harris  puts  it,  "Natural  selection  may 
explain  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  but  it  can- 
not explain  the  arrival  of  the  fittest." 

It  was  around  this  question  of  the  "causes" 


84  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

of  variation  that  the  Neo-Lamarckians  and 
the  Weismannians  fought  their  battle,  the  for- 
mer insisting,  as  we  have  seen,  that  variation 
was  caused  by  the  hereditary  transmission  of 
acquired  characters,  while  Weismann  main- 
tained that  variation  arose  solely  through  the 
combining  of  two  portions  of  differing  germ- 
plasm  contributed  by  two  different  individu- 
als, and  producing  a  new  individual  unlike 
either, — a  "variation"  from  both.  While  what- 
ever there  was  of  victory  fell  to  Weismann, 
neither  side  has  experimentally  proven  its 
case,  and  we  are  still  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
"causes  of  variation."  Our  ignorance  is  still 
cloaked  in  the  convenient  word  "spontane- 
ous ;"  to  Darwin's  "spontaneous  variation"  we 
now  add  DeVries'  "spontaneous  mutation." 

It  is  another  tribute  to  Darwin's  caution 
and  insight  that  he  recognized  the  possibility 
of  variations  arising  either  suddenly,  as  De 
Vries  asserts  they  do,  or  gradually  as  DeVries 
denies. 

Not  only  did  Alfred  Russell  Wallace  seek 
to  limit  the  operation  of  natural  selection  in 
certain  fields,  in  order  to  make  room  for  his 
spiritualist  theories  —  an  adventure  which 
failed  dismally  —  but  he  denied  the  sudden 
appearance  of  new  species  or  sub-species, 
thereby  restricting  Darwinism,  as  he  under- 


DE   VRIES'    "MUTATION"  S6 

stood  it,  to  the  origin  of  new  species  by  the 
gradual  accumulation  of  those  almost  imper- 
ceptible variations  usually  described  as  "fluc- 
tuations/' Whatever  conflict  there  may  be 
between  Darwinism  and  mutation  must  be 
ascribed  to  Wallace.  As  DeVries  clearly  rec- 
ognizes, Darwin  is  in  no  way  responsible. 
"Darwin,"  says  DeVries,  "recognized  both 
lines  of  evolution." 

The  difference  between  "fluctuations"  and 
"mutation'^  is  illustrated  by  DeVries  recalling 
Galton's  simile  of  a  polyhedron  —  an  example 
of  which  is  a  solid  piece  of  glass  covered  with 
many  small  flat  faces.  When  it  comes  to  rest 
on  any  particular  face,  it  is  in  stable  equili- 
brium. Small  disturbances  may  make  it  oscil- 
late, but  it  returns  always  to  the  same  face. 
These  oscillations  are  like  fluctuating  varia- 
tions. A  greater  disturbance  may  cause  the 
polyhedron  to  roll  over  on  to  a  new  face, 
where  it  comes  to  rest  again,  only  showing 
the  ever  present  fluctuations  around  the  new 
center.  The  new  position  corresponds  to  a 
mutation.  One  of  the  disabilities  of  this  illus- 
tration is  that  some  fluctuations  represent  a 
greater  disturbance  from  the  given  position 
than  some  mutations.  The  essential  difference 
is  that  in  the  fluctuation  it  rocks  back  again 


86  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

while  in  the  mutation  it  remains  on  a  new 
base. 

Everybody  has  heard  something  of  the  fa- 
mous evening  primrose  which  gave  DeVries 
his  first  and  most  conclusive  evidence  of  mu- 
tation. At  Hilversum  near  Amsterdam,  he 
discovered  a  large  number  af  the  plants  of  the 
evening  primrose,  named  Lamarckiana  after 
Lamarck.  It  is  an  American  plant  imported 
to  Europe.  It  often  escapes  from  cultivation 
and  in  this  case  DeVries  says  it  had  escaped 
from  a  park.  It  had  run  wild  ten  years.  A 
year  after  first  noticing  them  DeVries  ob- 
served two  new  forms  which  he  at  once  rec- 
ognized as  two  new  elementary  species. 

In  the  test  conditions  of  his  own  garden,  in 
an  experiment  covering  thirteen  years,  he 
observed  over  fifty  thousand  of  the  Lamarcki- 
ana spread  over  eight  generations  and  of  these 
eight  hundred  were  mutations  divided  among 
seven  new  elementary  species.  These  muta- 
tions, when  self-fertilized,  or  fertilized  from 
plants  like  themselves,  bred  true  to  them- 
selves, thus  answering  the  test  of  a  real  spe- 
cies. DeVries  also  watched  the  field  from 
which  his  original  forms  were  taken,  and  saw 
that  similar  mutations  occurred  there  so  that 
they  were  not  in  any  way  due  to  cultivation. 

Thus    has    the    modest    mutating  primrose 


DE  VRIES'   "MUTATION"  87 

contributed  its  quota  to  the  solution  of  that 
riddle  of  the  universe  which^  until  it  is  solved, 
will  always  command  a  paramount  position  in 
the  thoughts  of  men. 

DeVries  discourages  the  notion  that  muta- 
tions are  always  occurring  everywhere,  which 
might  seem  to  be  one  of  the  inferences  from 
his  theory,  and  his  twenty-fourth  lecture  of 
the  series,  delivered  before  the  University  of 
California  is  entitled  "The  Hypothesis  of  Pe- 
riodic Mutations."  The  common  primrose,  he 
says,  seems  to  be  immutable  at  present,  and 
argues  that  it  must  have  had  a  mutatory  pe- 
riod sometime  in  the  past,  when,  perhaps,  the 
evening  primrose  was  not  mutating.  He  says : 
"All  the  facts  point  to  the  conclusion  that 
these  periods,  of  stability  and  mutability,  al- 
ternate more  or  less  regularly  with  one  an- 
other." 

He  deals  the  Neo-Lamarckians  a  heavy 
blow  by  his  denial  of  "direct"  adaptation,  and 
he  greatly  strengthens  their  opponents  when 
he  asserts  that  mutation  takes  place,  not  only 
in  useful  directions,  but  in  all  directions,  leav- 
ing natural  selection  to  destroy  the  unfit.  This 
is  a  restatement  of  Darwin's  conception,  fol- 
lowed by  Weismann,  of  "fortuitous"  varia- 
tions, and  is  contrary  to  the  notion  of  Spencer 
and  Haeckel,  that  variations  are  mainly  in  the 


88  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  OITGANIC 

direction  of  adaptation  to  environment,  as  a 
result  of  animals  exerting  themselves  in  that 
direction. 

This  point  is  well  stated  by  DeVries  in  the 
following  passage,  —  "This  failure  of  a  large 
part  of  the  productions  of  nature  deserves  to 
be  considered  at  some  length.  It  may  be  el- 
evated to  a  principle,  and  may  be  made  use 
of  to  explain  many  difficult  points  of  the  the- 
ory of  descent.  If  in  order  to  secure  one  good 
novelty  nature  must  produce  ten  or  twenty  or 
perhaps  more  bad  ones  at  the  same  time,  the 
possibility  of  improvements  coming  by  pure 
chance  must  be  granted  at  once.  All  hypo- 
theses concerning  the  direct  causes  of  adap- 
tation at  once  become  superfluous,  and  the 
great  principle  enunciated  by  Darwin  once 
more  reigns  supreme." 

Another  difficulty  which  DeVries  claims  to 
have  solved  by  his  theory,  is  the  supposed 
contradiction  between  the  physicist  and  the 
biologist  as  to  the  time  allowed  by  the  former 
and  the  time  required  by  the  latter,  for  the 
evolution  of  animals. 

Lord  Kelvin  asserted  the  age  of  the  earth  to 
be  between  twenty  and  forty  million  years. 
George  Darwin  estimates  the  separation  of 
the  moon  from  the  earth  as  having  taken  place 
some  fifty-six  million  years  ago.   Gekie  estim- 


DE  VRIES'   "MUTATION"  89 

ated  the  existence  of  the  solid  crust  of  the 
earth  as  at  most  hundred  million  years. 
Joly,  by  calculating  the  amount  of  dissolved 
salts,  and  Dubois  by  the  amount  of  lime,  es- 
timated the  age  of  the  rivers,  Joly  giving  as 
probable  fifty-five  and  Dubois  thirty-six  mil- 
lions of  years. 

"All  in  all,''  concludes  DeVries,  "it  seems 
evident  that  the  duration  of  life  does  not  com- 
ply with  the  demands  of  the  conception  of 
very  slow  and  continuous  evolution."  Muta- 
tion, with  its  sudden  leaps,  has  no  such  dif- 
ficulty, and,  —  "The  demands  of  the  biologists 
and  the  results  of  the  physicists  are  harmon- 
ized on  the  ground  of  the  theory  of  mutation." 

In  order  properly  to  estimate  the  sociolog- 
ical significance  of  DeVries'  theory  it  will  be 
necessary  to  go  back  more  than  a  century,  and 
observe  the  sociological  import  of  the  leading 
biological  ideas  of  that  period. 

And  here  let  us  remark,  that  nobody  knows 
better  than  we  do  the  danger  of  transplanting, 
without  criticism,  biological  theories  into  the 
field  of  sociology.  Nevertheless,  our  oppo- 
nents have  never  lost  an  opportunity  to  twist 
and  distort  science,  if  perchance  by  any  pos- 
sibility it  could  be  made  to  contradict  any- 
thing that  had  so  much  as  the  semblance  of 
Socialism.  We,  however,  have  always  insisted 


90  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

on  the  weakness  of  reasoning  by  mere  ana- 
logy and  have  kept  to  those  general  laws 
which  have  been  worked  out  separately  in  so- 
ciology. 

The  principle  now  about  to  be  applied  be- 
longs to  this  latter  class.  It  is  the  most  lumin- 
ous principle  ever  employed  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  society.  This  prin- 
ciple is  that  the  intellectual  life  of  a  people  is 
determined  by  its  mode  of  wealth  production 
and  the  social  classes  arising  therefrom. 

Jean  Lamarck,  the  first  great  modern  apos- 
tle of  evolution,  died  in  poverty  because  he  ad- 
vocated a  theory  that  appeared  to  contradict 
the  interests  of  the  ruling  class  of  his  time. 
He  had  against  him  all  that  survived  of  feudal 
interests,  which  was  intensely  theological,  and 
although  his  theory  really  favored  the  bourge- 
oisie, that  class  was  not  yet  aware  of  it. 

Cuvier  was  the  lion  of  that  day,  for  he  man- 
aged the  remarkable  feat  of  adapting  science 
to  the  ideas,  not  only  of  the  increasing  bour- 
geoisie, but  also  of  the  diminishing  feudal 
power.  He  pleased  the  feudal  regime,  such  of 
it  as  remained,  by  denying  evolution,  and  en- 
dorsing its  theology.  This  made  his  theories 
welcome  also  among  those  shrewd  early  capi- 
talists, as  the  English,  who  realized  more 
quickly  than  their  fellows,  that  religious  belief 


DE   VRIES'    "MUTATION"  91 

might  constitute  as  great  a  prop  for  one  ruling 
class  at  it  had  already  been  for  another. 

But  in  his  capacity  of  scientific  reflection  of 
the  class  interest  of  his  masters,  Cuvier's  mas- 
terpiece was  his  "cataclysmic  theory."  Ac- 
cording to  this  theory,  organisms  were  not 
the  result  of  evolution,  but  they  were  now  just 
as  when  they  issued  from  the  hands  of  the 
Creator.  The  difference  between  existing 
forms,  and  those  creatures  whose  story  is 
preserved  in  the  rocks,  was  explained  by  a 
series  of  cataclysms  or  catastrophes  by  which, 
at  certain  widely  separated  periods,  all  living 
forms  were  destroyed,  and  a  completely  new 
stock  was  created  to  take  their  places. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  a  better 
scientific  justification  of  the  French  revolu- 
tion than  Cuvier's  theory  presented.  For  many 
decades  before  that  event  these  rising  com- 
.mercialists  had  groaned  under  the  yoke  of 
feudal  dues  and  feudal  restraints  of  trade. 
Nothing  could  be  more  to  their  wishes  than 
a  sudden  social  "cataclysm"  that  would  de- 
stroy the  feudal  system  with  its  trade  despis- 
ing and  plundering  nobility,  and  exalt  its  own 
trading  class  to  fill  the  vacancy.  And  when 
this  had  been  accomplished,  and  that  same 
nobility  had  been  sent  to  the  guillotine,  it 
was  great  consolation  to  have  on  Cuvier's  au- 


92  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

thority,  that  this  method  of  sudden  violence 
had  no  less  a  precedent  than  the  methods  of 
the  Almighty  in  suddenly  destroying  the  liv- 
ing things  in  his  own  universe. 

Cuvier's  theory  however,  almost  died  with 
him,  for  the  violent  desires  of  the  bourgeoisie 
were  short  lived.  When  it  realized  the  com- 
pleteness of  its  own  victory,  and  that  the  next 
"cataclysm"  would  mean  its  own  overthrow 
and  the  enthronement  of  some  successor,  ca- 
taclysms lost  favor  and  were  frowned  down. 
Preachers  of  sudden  and  violent  changes  were 
now  regarded  as  the  enemies  of  society,  and 
Cuvier's  once  lauded  theory  of  cataclysms  was 
sneered  at  as  a  relic  of  the  dark  ages.  What 
the  capitalist  class  wanted  now  was  peace,  and 
long  lifcj  and  above  all,  no  disturbances. 

And  it  was  just  at  this  point  that  Darwin 
came  forward  with  a  theory  that  seemed  made 
to  order.  True  this  theory  spoke  of  evolution 
and  change,  but  the  change  was  so  slow  it 
was  impossible  to  notice  it.  A  million  years 
was  as  ten  minutes  to  this  theory,  and  if  it 
took  as  long  for  one  class  in  society  to  dis- 
place another,  or  for  one  social  regime  to  suc- 
ceed another,  as  it  does  for  one  species  to  de- 
velop from  another,  the  capitalists  and  their 
heirs  had  nothing  to  apprehend  for  a  thousand 
generations. 


DE  VRIES'   "MUTATION"  93 

There  was  nothing  sudden  about  this  the- 
ory, quite  the  contrary.  In  fact  the  real  diffi- 
culty was  to  see  how  anything  managed  to 
change  at  all. 

As  for  that  part  of  it  which  spoke  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  what  could  be  clearer 
than  that  these  self-made  men  were  them- 
selves the  fittest.  It  was,  of  course  equally 
clear  that  the  degraded  working  class,  lacking 
the  cleverness  to  rise,  was  destined  to  be  eli- 
minated as  unfit,  by  the  laws  of  nature. 

For  half  a  century  this  argument  of  slow 
evolution  has  done  valiant  service  as  an  anti- 
dote for  Socialism,  and  the  present  ruling  class 
would  like  to  retain  it  forever. 

But  no  ruling  class  ever  was  or  ever  can 
be  wholly  omnipotent.  The  capitalists  of  to- 
day can  no  more  hinder  the  process  of  social 
evolution,  with  its  resulting  march  of  ideas, 
than  they  can  intercept  gravitation  or  divert 
the  tides.  They  are  being  driven  blindly  to 
their  fate  by  social  forces  which  are  beyond 
their  command. 

They  are  in  the  midst  of  social  powers 
which  mock  their  puny  efforts  to  administer. 
Contradictions  arise  which  cannot  continue. 
As  soon  as  a  capitalist  country  is  over-stocked 
with  wealth,  poverty  prepares  to  stalk  abroad. 

But    amid    all    this    confusion,    something 


94  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

moves  on,  a  something  which  we  sometimes 
call  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Society  grows  rest- 
less and  instinctively  anticipates  a  coming 
change.  A  new  class  rises  into  prominence 
and  begins  to  realize  its  strength  and  develop 
its  intelligence. 

The  ruling  class  still  proclaims  its  will,  but 
cannot  always  execute  it.  Colorado,  Idaho, 
and  Haywood  are  proof  of  that.  The  mental 
development  of  this  new  class  has  reached  the 
point  where  it  has  become  an  intellectual  fac- 
tor in  the  national  life.  Its  voice  is  listened  to 
by  publishers  of  books.  It  establishes  its  own 
press.  It  publishes  a  literature  of  its  own.  It 
creates  its  own  platform.  It  reaches  into  the 
future  and  demands  control  of  its  own  destiny. 

And  now  see  how  all  this  is  reflected  in  the 
scientific  world.  It  is  no  longer  true  that  spe- 
cies require  thousands  of  years  for  the  sim- 
plest change.  We  are  now  informed  that 
change;  takes  place  by  sudden  leaps.  At  one 
single  step  a  new  species  appears  and  begins 
its  existence.  There  is  therefore,  no  longer 
anything  in  biological  science  to  contradict 
the  Socialist  position  that  a  new  society  may 
be  born  of  a  sudden  revolution. 

Mutation,  the  savants  tell  us,  runs  in  peri- 
ods, alternating  with  periods  of  apparent  sta- 
bility.  Then  if  we  are  not  supported  we  are 


DE  VRIES'   "MUTATION"  95 

at  any  rate  not  contradicted^  when  we  assert 
that  in  social  development,  periods  of  econo- 
mic evolution,  with  apparent  social  stability, 
are  followed  by  periods  of  social  revolution 
when  the  entire  social  superstructure  is  trans- 
formed. 

It  is  no  longer  necessary  to  assume  count- 
less millions  of  years  for  the  evolution  of  liv- 
ing forms.  A  plant  enjoys  a  period  of  appar- 
ent stability,  then  it  reaches  a  point  where  it 
"explodes"  and  gives  birth  to  new  species.  If 
a  plant,  why  not  a  society?  At  least  there  is 
nothing  in  the  example  of  the  plant  that  will 
furnish  an  argument  against  such  an  idea. 

If  the  history  of  biological  science  for  the 
last  half  a  century  were  to  be  written  by  a 
Socialist,  who  had  no  scruples  about  wresting 
the  record  so  as  to  support  his  Socialist  the- 
ories, he  would  have  nothing  to  gain  by  chang- 
ing a  single  line. 

There  is  nothing  in  that  history  to  contra- 
dict us  when  we  assert  the  probability  or  the 
certainty,  of  a  social  revolution.  Who,  that 
looks  about  him^  can  fail  to  see  that  death  is 
plainly  branded  in  the  brow  of  the  existing 
social  order?  Its  legal,  political,  and  financial 
institutions  are  tied'  together  with  rotten 
thread.  It  is  already  outliving  its  usefulness, 
and  when  it  goes  it  will  have  few  mourners. 


96  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

But  millions  will  hail  with  joy  that  social  mu- 
tation which  will  kindle  the  fires  of  human 
liberty,  and  create,  if  not  a  new  Heaven,  at 
least,  a  new  earth. 


VI. 
KROPOTKIN'S  "MUTUAL  AID'*. 

Lamarck  was  the  first  to  present  the  theory 
of  Evolution  in  a  thoroughly  scientific  man- 
ner. Then  Darwin  discovered  "the  great  prin- 
ciple which  rules  the  evolution  of  organisms'' ; 
the  principle  of  "natural  selection."  Then 
Weismann  repudiated  current  ideas  as  to  how 
the  fittest  "arrived,"  or  "originated/'  and  pre- 
sented in  their  place  a  theory  of  his  own, 
which  is  still  under  discussion.  DeVries 
raised  the  question  as  to  whether  new  spe- 
cies "arrive"  by  a  gradual  accumulation  of 
tiny  changes,  or  by  sudden  leaps  —  muta- 
tions —  and  demonstrated  the  latter  by  his 
experiments  with  the  evening  primrose. 

And  now  comes  Kropotkin  with  the  ques- 
tion, "Who  are  the  fittest?"  What  constitutes 
the  fitness,  which  makes  for  survival?  Are 
those  organisms  the  fittest  which  are  con- 
stantly waging  a  war  of  extermination  against 
every  other  organism  in  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, or,  are  those  the  fittest  which  co- 
operate with  each  other  in  the  preservation  of 
the  common  life  of  all? 

97 


98  EVOLUTION.   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

The  raising  of  this  question  brings  to  light 
another  striking  instance  of  the  influence  of 
class  interests  on  scientific  thought.  It  is  a 
matter  of  common  observation  that  any  class, 
struggling  for  what  it  conceives  to  be  its  own 
emancipation,  looks  to  the  past  for  justifica- 
tion and  precedent.  In  the  English  speaking 
world  there  is  a  widely  prevailing  opinion  that 
the  Magna  Charta,  extorted  from  King  John 
at  Runnymede,  is  the  foundation  of  modern 
liberty. 

The  French  bourgeoisie,  struggling  to  over- 
throw the  feudal  monarchy,  sought  its  justi- 
fication in  that  "state  of  nature"  which  a  de- 
spotic monarchy  was  said  to  contravene. 
Thus  writers  like  Rousseau  idealized  nature, 
representing  it  as  comparatively  perfect,  and 
declared  that  a  restoration  of  "natural  rights" 
was  essential  to  liberty.  But  when  this  same 
bourgeoisie  had  won  its  victory  and  enthroned 
itself,  and  instead  of  increasing  the  liberty, 
had  in  many  respects,  deepened  the  degrada- 
tion of  the  mass  of  the  French  people,  its 
ideas  about  the  "state  of  nature"  underwent  a 
radical  change.  And  this  happened  not  only 
in  France  but  wherever  the  bourgeoisie  tri- 
umphed. 

Now  the  "state  of  nature"  was  one  of  con- 
stant carnage;  nature  was  "red  in  tooth  and 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL   AII^"  99 

claw.'*  And  this  chamber  of  horrors  was  sup- 
posed to  support  the  exploitation  of  labor,  and 
countenance  a  brutalization  of  childhood  that 
constitutes  the  blackest  stain  on  human  his- 
tory. So  strong  was  the  swirl  that  Huxley 
was  swept  into  it;  but,  although  he  main- 
tained the  "gladiatorial"  view  of  nature,  he 
repudiated  the  social  atrocities  which  capital- 
ist apologists  such  as  Spencer  sought  to  de- 
duce from  it.  In  later  years,  Spencer  partially 
abandoned  his  premise  as  to  the  animal  world 
but,  strangely  enough,  kept  it  intact  for  prim- 
itive man. 

For  this  view  of  nature  as  full  of  nothing 
but  darkness  and  cruelty,  where,  as  Hobbes 
had  put  it,  there  waged  "the  war  of  every  one 
against  everybody,"  the  great  authority  of 
Darwin  was  invoked.  In  fact,  Darwin  was 
supposed  to  be  almost  solely  responsible  for 
the  theory,  and  its  overthrow  by  Kropotkin 
was  heralded  by  the  uninformed  as  another  of 
those  "death-blows"  of  which  Darwinism  is 
thought  to  have  received  so  many  during  the 
last  quarter  of  a  century. 

Kropotkin,  however,  in  his  introduction, 
claims  that  the  idea  of  mutual  aid  is  "in  real- 
ity, nothing  but  a  further  development  of  the 
ideas  expressed  by  Darwin  in  the  'Descent  of 
Man' ".    Darwin    said :    "Those    communities 


100  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

which  included  the  greatest  number  of  sym- 
pathetic members  would  flourish  best,  and 
rear  the  greatest  number  of  oflfspring."  Kro- 
potkin  complains  that  Darwin  did  not  suffi- 
ciently develop  this  idea,  but  over-emphasized 
the  idea  of  "competition"  for  life,  and  this 
error,  he  insists,  was  further  accentuated  by 
his  disciples.  "It  happened  with  Darwin's 
theory,"  he  says,  "as  it  always  happens  with 
theories  having  any  bearing  upon  human  re- 
lations. Instead  of  widening  it  according  to 
his  own  hints,  his  followers  narrowed  it  still 
more." 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Kropotkin 
denies  the  Darwinian  principle  of  mutual 
struggle.  "It  is  evident,"  says  he,  "that  no 
review  of  evolution  can  be  complete  unless 
these  two  dominant  currents  are  analyzed  *  *  * 
The  struggles  between  these  two  forces  make, 
in  fact,  the  substance  of  history."  He  antici- 
pates the  objection  that  his  work  only  em- 
phasizes the  principle  of  mutual  aid  by  insist- 
ing that  the  principle  of  struggle  has  "already 
been  analyzed,  described,  and  glorified  from 
time  immemorial.  In  fact,  up  to  the  present 
time,  this  current  alone  has  received  attention 
from  thef  epical  poet,  the  annalist,  the  histor- 
ian, and  the  sociologist." 

The  main  body  of  his  book  is  a  solid  mass 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL    AID'V  101 

of  evidence  of  the  existence  of  mutual  aid 
everywhere  in  the  living  world,  from  the  lowest 
insects  to  the  highest  mammals;  and  from 
the  first  stone  age  to  the  twentieth  century. 
It  consists  of  eight  chapters,  the  first  two  of 
which  are  devoted  to  "Mutual  Aid  among 
Animals." 

Here,  the  theory  of  the  human  origin  of  so- 
ciety is  utterly  demolished.  Complex  social 
arrangements,  popularly  supposed  to  be  lim- 
ited to  ants  and  bees,  are  shown  to  flourish 
everywhere,  especially  among  birds. 

With  the  parrot  mutual  aid  is  developed  to 
such  an  extent  that  Kropotkin  places  it  "at 
the  very  top  of  the  whole  feathered  world  for 
the  development  of  its  intelligence."  The 
white  cockatoos  of  Australia,  in  raiding  a 
crop,  mutually  aid  each  other  so  shrewdly  as 
to  "baffle  all  stratagems"  to  thwart  them.  "Be- 
fore starting  to  plunder  a  cornfield,  they  first 
send  out  a  reconnoitering  party  which  occu- 
pies the  highest  trees  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
field,  while  other  scouts  perch  upon  the  inter- 
mediate trees  between  the  field  and  the  forest 
and  transmit  signals.  If  the  report  runs  'all 
right,'  a  score  of  cockatoos  will  separate  from 
the  bulk  of  the  band,  take  a  flight  in  the  air, 
and  then  fly  towards  the  trees  nearest  to  the 
field.   They  also  will  scrutinize  the  neighbor- 


102  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

hood  for  a  long  while,  and  only  then  will  give 
the  signal  for  general  advance,  after  which  the 
whole  band  starts  at  once  and  plunders  the 
field  in  no  time." 

Mutual  aid  is  very  conspicuous  among  peli- 
cans. "They  always  go  fishing  in  numerous 
bands  and  after  having  chosen  an  appropriate 
bay,  they  form  a  wide  half  circle  in  face  of 
the  shore,  and  narrow  it  by  paddling  towards 
the  shore,  catching  all  the  fish  that  happen  to 
be  enclosed  in  the  circle.  On  narrow  rivers 
and  canals  they  even  divide  into  two  parties, 
each  of  which  draws  up  on  a  half  circle,  and 
both  paddle  to  meet  each  other,  just  as  if  two 
parties  of  men  dragging  two  long  nets  should 
advance  to  capture  all  the  fish  taken  between 
the  nets  when  both  parties  come  to  meet." 

Our  familiar  friend,  the  house  sparrow,  is 
not  overlooked  and  is  said  to  have  practiced 
mutual  aid  to  such  an  extent  as  to  be  recog- 
nized even  by  the  ancient  Greeks.  Kropotkin 
quotes  from  memory,  the  Greek  Orator  who 
exclaimed:  "While  I  am  speaking  to  you  a 
sparrow  has  come  to  tell  other  sparrows  that 
a  slave  has  dropped  on  the  floor  a  sack  of 
corn,  and  they  all  go  there  to  feed  on  the 
grain."  Sparrows  also  maintain  social  disci- 
pline: "If  a  lazy  sparrow  intends  appropriat- 
ing the  nest  a  comrade  is  building,  or  even 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL.   AID"  103 

Steals  from  it  a  few  sprays  of  straw,  the  group 
interferes  against  the  lazy  comrade."  Kropot- 
kin  presents  a  number  of  well  authenticated 
observations  of  the  great  compassion  and  sym- 
pathy prevailing  among  those  wild  creatures, 
which  are  popularly  supposed  to  be  always 
flying  at  each  others'  throats:  J.  C.  Woods' 
narrative  "of  a  weasel  which  came  to  pick  up 
and  carry  away  an  injured  comrade;"  Brehm, 
who  "himself  saw  two  crows  feeding  in  a  hol- 
low tree  a  third  crow  which  had  a  wound 
several  weeks  old."  Captain  Stansbury,  on  his 
journey  to  Utah,  as  quoted  by  Darwin,  "saw 
a  blind  pelican  which  was  fed,  and  well  fed, 
by  other  pelicans  upon  fishes  which  had  to 
be  brought  a  distance  of  thirty  miles." 

From  these  and  a  multitude  of  similar  cases 
Kropotkin  concludes  that  while  "no  naturalist 
will  doubt  that  the  idea  of  a  struggle  for  life, 
carried  on  through  organic  nature,  is  the 
greatest  generalization  of  our  century,  that 
struggle  is  very  often  collective,  against  ad- 
verse circumstances." 

Kropotkin  in  concluding  his  consideration 
of  animals,  immensely  strengthens  his  posi- 
tion by  pointing  out  various  methods  by 
which  new  species  may  develop  or  old  ones 
disappear,  without  the  operation  of  a  deadly 
competition  between  individuals.   "The  squir- 


104  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

rels,  for  instance,  when  there  is  a  scarcity  of 
cones  in  the  larch  forests,  remove  to  the  fir- 
tree  forests,  and  this  change  of  food  has  cer- 
tain well  known  physiological  ef5fects  on  squir- 
rels. If  this  change  of  habits  does  not  last  — 
if  next  year  the  cones  are  again  plentiful  in 
the  dark  larch  wood  —  no  new  variety  of 
squirrels  will  evidently  arise  from  this  cause. 
But  if  part  of  the  wide  area  occupied  by  the 
squirrels  begins  to  have  its  physical  charac- 
ters altered  —  in  consequence  of,  let  us  say, 
a  milder  climate  or  desiccation,  (drying  up) 
which  both  bring  about  an  increase  of  the  pine 
forests  in  proportion  to  the  larch  woods  — 
and  if  some  other  conditions  occur  to  induce 
squirrels  to  dwell  on  the  outskirts  of  the  de- 
siccating region  —  we  shall  then  have  a  new, 
1.  e.,  an  incipient  new  species  of  squirrels.  A 
larger  proportion  of  squirrels  of  the  new,  bet- 
ter-adapted variety  would  survive  each  year, 
and  the  intermediate  links  would  die  in  the 
course  of  time,  without  having  been  starved 
out  by  Malthusian  competitors." 

Again:  "If  we  take  the  horses  and  cattle 
which  are  grazing  all  the  winter  through  in 
the  Steppes  of  Transbaikalia,  we  find  them 
very  lean  and  exhausted  at  the  end  of  the 
winter.  But  they  grow  exhausted  not  because 
there  is  not  enough  food  for  all  of  them  — 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL.    AID"  105 

the  grass  buried  under  a  thin  sheet  of  snow  is 
everywhere  in  abundance  —  but  because  of 
the  difficulty  of  getting  it  from  beneath  the 
snow  and  this  difficulty  is  the  same  for  all 
horses  alike.  *  *  *  We  can  safely  say  that 
their  number  are  not  kept  down  by  competi- 
tion; that  at  no  time  of  the  year  they  need 
struggle,  for  food  and  that  if  they  never  reach 
anything,  approaching  over-population,  the 
cause  is  in  the  climate,  and  not  in  competi- 
tion." 

After  citing  the  rodents  that  combine  to 
store  food  for  the  winter,  or  fall  asleep  about 
the  time  competition  should  set  in;  and  the 
buffaloes  which  form  immense  herds  to  mig- 
rate across  a  continent  to  where  food  is  plen- 
tiful; and  beavers,  which  when  they  grow 
numerous,  divide  into  two  parties,  and  go,  the 
old  ones  down  the  river,  and  the  young  ones 
up  the  river  and  avoid  competition;  after  cit- 
ing these  and  many  others,  he  declares  the 
mandate  of  nature  to  be:  "Don't  compete!  — 
competition  is  always  injurious  to  the  species, 
and  you  have  plenty  of  resources  to  avoid  it! 
*  *  *  Therefore  combine  —  practice  mutual 
aid!  That  is  the  surest  means  for  giving  to 
each  and  to  all  the  greatest  safety,  the  best 
guarantee  of  existence  and  progress,  bodily, 
intellectually,  and  morally." 


106  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

The  third  chapter  deals  with  "Mutual  Aid 
Among  Savages."  Here  we  meet  the  question 
as  to  whether  the  family  is  an  ancient  insti- 
tution, antedating  the  tribe  and  clan  or 
whether  it  appeared  at  a  much  later  date  as 
an  outgrowth  of  the  clan.  Kropotkin  takes 
the  latter  view  as  advocated  by  Morgan,  Ba- 
chofen,  Maine,  Lubbock  and  Tylor,  and  re- 
jects the  former  as  presented  by  Starcke  and 
Westermarck. 

The  savage  of  anthropological  research  is 
shown  to  be  a  very  different  creature  from  the 
blood-thirsty  monster  of  popular  tradition. 
"Sometimes  he  is  a  cannibal,  it  is  true,  but  not 
often,  and  then  it  is  closely  associated  with 
economic  necessity,  and  is  abandoned  when 
food  becomes  plentiful."  The  custom  of  leav- 
ing old  men  in  the  woods  to  die,  is  bad 
enough,  but  not  so  bad  as  supposed.  They 
usually  carry  the  old  man  with  them  in  their 
migrations  until  he  himself  grows  tired  of  be- 
ing a  burden  and  begs  to  be  killed.  When 
this  point  is  reached,  he  is  given  more  than 
his  share  of  food,  and  left  in  the  woods  to 
die,  because  no  one  has  the  heart  to  kill  him. 
Infanticide  is  practiced  from  the  same  motive 
which  induces  savages  to  take  all  kinds  of 
measures  for  diminishing  the  birth-rate — they 
cannot  rear  all   of  their  children.     In  times 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL    AID'*  107 

of  plenty  it  disappears.  It  was  when  these 
customs  were  enveloped  in  a  religious  halo 
and  preserved  as  sacred  ceremonies,  after  all 
necessity  for  them  had  disappeared,  that  they 
attained  their  most  revolting  characters. 

He  believed  in  revenge  but  it  was  to  be 
strictly  measured  by  the  offense.  It  must  be 
an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ;  not 
a  head  for  an  eye,  or  an  eye  for  a  tooth.  He 
only  killed  his  enemies,  and  he  always,  at  all 
costs,  defended  the  members  of  his  own  tribe. 
"Within  the  tribe  everything  is  shared  in 
common;  every  morsel  of  food  is  divided 
among  all  present;  and  if  the  savage  is  alone 
in  the  woods,  he  does  not  begin  his  meal  un- 
til he  has  londly  shouted  thrice  an  invitation 
to  any  one  who  may  hear  his  voice  to  share 

his  meal." "If  he  infringes  one  of  the 

smaller  tribal  rules,  he  is  prosecuted  by  the 
mockeries  of  the  women."  "When  he  enters 
his  neighbors'  territory  he  must  loudly  an- 
nounce his  coming,  and  if  he  enters  a  house 
he  must  deposit  his  hatchet  at  the  entrance. 
If  one  shows  greediness  when  spoil  is  divided 
all  the  others  give  him  their  share  to  shame 
him."  Scolding  and  scorning  are  greatly  con- 
.demned.  Their  children  are  not  very  quarrel- 
some and  very  rarely  fight.  The  most  they 
may  say,   is,   "Your   mother   does   not  know 


108  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

sewing,"  or  "Your  father  is  blind  of  one  eye." 
The  savage  identified  his  interests  with 
those  of  his  tribe;  he  was  no  individualist, 
and  under  no  circumstances  would  he  have 
consented  to  child  labor. 

When  we  reach  the  barbarians,  who  are  con- 
sidered in  the  fourth  chapter,  we  enter  the  his- 
torical period.  At  first  sight,  mutual  aid  seems 
to  be  non-existent  at  this  period.  Here  there 
seems  to  be  nothing  but  battle  and  bloodshed. 
But  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek ;  it  is  because, 
until  recently  historians  regaled  us  exclusiv- 
ely with  what  has  been  aptly  called,  "drum 
and  trumpet  history."  "They  hand  down  to 
posterity  the  most  minute  descriptions  of  ev- 
ery war,  every  battle  and  skirmish,  every 
contest  and  act  of  violence,  every  kind  of  in- 
dividual suffering;  but  they  hardly  give  any 
trace  of  the  countless  acts  of  mutual  support 
and  devotion  which  every  one  of  us  knows 
from  his  own  experience  *  *  *  The  annalists 
of  old  never  failed  to  chronicle  the  petty  wars 
and  calamities  which  harrassed  their  contem- 
poraries but  they  paid  no  attention  whatever 
to  the  life  of  the  masses,  although  the  masses 
chiefly  used  to  toil  peacefully  while  the  few 
indulged  in  fighting." 

But  Sir  Henry  Maine  in  his  work  on  the 
"Origin    of    International     Law,"    has    fully 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL    AID**  109 

proved  that  ''Man  has  never  been  so  ferocious 
or  so  stupid  as  to  submit  to  such  an  evil  as 
war  without  some  kind  of  an  effort  to  prevent 
it."  And  he  has  shown  how  exceedingly  great 
is  "the  number  of  ancient  institutions  which 
bear  the  marks  of  a  design  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  war,  or  to  provide  an  alternative  to  it." 

A  pregnant  suggestion  is  offered  as  to  the 
causes  of  that  great  migration  of  barbarians 
which  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman 
empire.  "It  is  desiccation,  a  quite  recent  desic- 
cation continued  still  at  a  speed  which  we  for- 
merly were  not  prepared  to  admit.  Against  it 
man  was  powerless.  When  the  inhabitants  of 
North- West  Mongolia  and  East  Turkestan 
saw  that  water  was  abandoning  them  they 
had  no  course  open  to  them  but  to  move 
down  the  broad  valleys  leading  to  the  low- 
lands, and  to  thrust  westward  the  inhabitants 
of  the  plains."  And  so  the  one  great  war 
recorded  of  the  barbarians,  was  thrust  upon 
them  by  absolute  physical  necessity. 

The  barbarians  had  no  social  problem,  for 
that  private  property  in  the  means  of  life 
which  constitutes  the  foundation  of  modern 
individualism,  and  from  which  tte  degrada- 
tion  and  poverty  of  modern  civilization  results, 
was  unknown  among  them.  They  were  com- 
munists.  The  interest  of  one  was  the  care  of 


110  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

all.  Nothing  was  owned  privately  until  it 
reached  the  very  point  of  consumption  and 
not  always  then,  as  food  was  largely  eaten  at 
communal  meals.  This  social  form  still  sur- 
vives especially  in  Russia,  and  Kropotkin 
says :  'The  sight  of  a  Russian  commune  mow- 
ing a  meadow  —  the  men  rivalling  each  other 
in  their  advance  with  the  scythe,  while  the 
women  turn  the  grass  over  and  throw  it  up 
into  heaps  —  is  one  of  the  most  inspiring 
sights;  it  shows  what  human  work  might  be 
and  ought  to  be.  The  hay,  in  such  case,  is 
divided  among  the  separate  households,  and 
it  is  evident  that  no  one  has  the  right  of  tak- 
ing hay  from  a  neighbor's  stack  without  his 
permission ;  but  the  limitation  of  this  last  rule 
among  the  Caucasian  Ossetes  is  most  note- 
worthy. When  the  cuckoo  cries  and  announ- 
ces that  spring  is  coming,  and  that  the  mead- 
ows will  soon  be  clothed  again  with  grass, 
every  one  in  need  has  the  right  of  taking  from 
a  neighbor's  stack  the  hay  he  wants  for  his 
cattle.  The  old  communal  rights  are  thus  re- 
asserted, as  if  to  prove  how  contrary  un- 
bridled individualism  is  to  human  nature." 

When  the  early  Christians  "had  all  things 
in  common,"  they  were  not  reaching  forward 
to  modern  Socialism ;  they  were  harking  back 
to  this  primitive  communism  which  shed  it** 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL    AID"  m 

joy  and  plenty  on  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
men  for  a  thousand  generations.  These  bar- 
barian communists  were  thorough  democrats, 
and  their  folkmotes,  where  everybody  gathered 
and  had  their  say,  were  the  only  semblance  of 
government  they  possessed,  and  so  thoroughly 
were  its  decisions  respected  that  no  officers 
were  needed  to  enforce  them.  They  were  also 
our  superiors  not  only  in  refusing  to  work  their 
children,  but  also  in  scorning  to  beat  them. 
They  said:  "The  body  of  the  child  reddens 
from  the  stroke,  but  the  face  of  him  who 
strikes  reddens  from  shame." 

The  two  chapters  on  "Mutual  Aid  in  the 
Medieval  City"  treat  the  guild  as  the  chief 
manifestation  of  the  principle  during  this  pe- 
riod. A  picture  is  presented,  in  some  detail 
of  the  struggle  of  the  free  cities  against  the 
increasing  encroachments  of  the  centralizing 
states.  The  medieval  cities  are  finally  defeat- 
ed, the  guilds  destroyed,  but  the  indestruct- 
ible principle  of  mutual  aid  takes  on  new 
forms  and  accommodates  itself  to  new  con- 
ditions. 

This  brings  us  to  the  closing  chapters  on 
"Mutual  Aid  Among  Ourselves."  The  first  of 
these  two  chapters  is  devoted  almost  entirely 
to  the  mutual  aid  habits  and  institutions  which 
still  survive  in  the  present  day  villages  of  Rus- 


113  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

sia,  Switzerland,  France  and  Germany.  The 
last  chapter  takes  up  really  modern  instances 
of  the  principle,  the  first  and  most  important 
are  the  Labor  unions  and  their  strikes,  Co- 
operative societies.  Life-boat  associations, 
Charitable  organizations. 

The  illustration  of  this  principle  which  is 
cited  first  after  the  Labor  union  is  the  Social- 
ist movement.  Kropotkin  presents  his  con- 
ception of  the  Socialist  movement  as  a  mani- 
festation of  mutual  aid  in  existing  society  in 
the  following  eloquent  passage: 

"Every  experienced  politician  knows  that 
all  great  political  movements  were  fought 
upon  large  and  often  distant  issues,  and  that 
those  of  them  were  the  strongest  which  pro- 
voked most  disinterested  enthusiasm.  All 
great  historical  movements  have  had  this 
character,  and  for  our  own  generation  Social- 
ism stands  in  that  case.  'Paid  agitators,'  is, 
no  doubt,  the  favorite  refrain  of  those  who 
know  nothing  about  it.  The  truth  however, 
is  that  —  to  speak  only  of  what  I  know  per- 
sonally —  if  I  had  kept  a  diary  for  the  last 
twenty-four  years,  the  reader  of  such  a  diary 
would  have  had  the  word  'heroism*  constantly 
on  his  lips.  But  the  men  I  would  have  spoken 
of  were  not  heroes;  they  were  average  men, 
inspired    by   a    grand    idea.     Every   Socialist 


KROPOTKIN'S    "MUTUAL    AID"  ng 

newspaper  —  and  there  are  hundreds  of  them 
in  Europe  alone  —  has  the  same  history  of 
years  of  sacrifice  without  any  hope  of  reward, 
and,  in  the  overwhelming  majority  of  cases, 
even  without  any  personal  ambition.  I  have 
seen  families  living  without  knowing  what 
would  be  their  food  tomorrow,  the  husband 
boycotted  all  round  in  his  little  town  for  his 
part  in  the  paper,  and  the  wife  supporting  the 
family  by  sewing,  and  such  a  situation  last- 
ing for  years,  until  the  family  would  retire, 
without  a  word  of  reproach,  simply  saying: 
'Continue;  we  can  hold  out  no  more!'  I  have 
seen  men,  dying  from  consumption,  and  know- 
ing it,  and  yet  knocking  about  in  snow  and 
fog  to  prepare  meetings  within  a  few  weeks 
from  death,  and  only  then  retiring  to  the  hos- 
spital  with  the  words:  'Now  friends  I  am 
done ;  the  doctors  say  I  have  but  a  few  weeks 
to  live.  Tell  the  comrades  I  shall  be  happy 
if  they  come  to  see  me.'  I  have  seen  facts 
that  would  be  described  as  'idealization'  if  I 
told  them  in  this  place;  and  the  very  names 
of  these  men,  hardly  known  outside  a  nar- 
row circle  of  friends,  will  soon  be  forgotten 
when  the  friends  too  have  passed  away.  In 
fact,  I  don't  know  myself  which  most  to  ad- 
mire, the  unbounded  devotion  of  these  few  or 
the  sum  total  of  petty  acts  of  devotion  of  the 


114  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

great  number.  Every  quire  of  a  penny  paper 
sold,  every  meeting,  every  hundred  votes 
which  are  won  at  a  Socialist  election,  repre- 
sent an  amount  of  energy  and  sacrifices  of 
which  no  outsider  has  the  faintest  idea.  And 
what  is  now  done  by  Socialists  has  been  done 
by  every  popular  and  advanced  party,  political 
and  religious,  in  the  past.  All  past  progress 
has  been  promoted  by  like  men  and  by  a  like 
devotion." 


VII. 
A  REPLY  TO  HAECKEL. 

The  revolt  against  ''authority"  has  been  car- 
ried to  ridiculous  extremes.  The  Manchester 
school  individualist,  Herbert  Spencer,  and  the 
metaphysical  egoist,  Max  Stirner,  would  alike 
agree  to  the  reduction  of  all  authority  to  the 
smallest  possible  residue.  The  most  reckless 
of  their  disciples,  having  shut  out  from  their 
thoughts  all  communication  with  the  world 
of  reality^  would  make  it  impossible  for  six 
men  to  pull  effectively  on  a  rope  because  five 
of  them  would  be  obliged  to  recognize  the 
authority  of  the  sixth,  when  he,  at  the  proper 
moment,  should  call  "Heave,  ho." 

To  thinkers  of  this  order,  music  would  be 
impossible.  Who  could  imagine  a  radical  in- 
dividualist bowing  to  a  waved  stick  and  rec- 
ognizing the  highly  centralized  authority  of 
the  "leader."  The  music  of  the  logical,  au- 
thority-repudiating individualist,  would  be  the 
haphazard  beating  of  the  tom-tom  of  the  East 
Indian,  and  not  the  highly  regulated  strains  of 
a  modern  orchestra. 

This  folly  is  equalled,  if  not  out-done,  by 
those  who  refuse    to    recognize    authority  in 

115 


116  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

science  and  thought.  When  a  man  claims  to 
have  a  new  and  fundamental  discovery  in 
astronomy,  and  at  the  same  time  speaks 
slightingly  of  the  researches  of  physicists  such 
as  Newton,  Kant,  and  Laplace,  it  is  fairly  safe 
to  conclude  that  you  are  listening  to  a  fool 
who  has  nothing  to  say  worthy  of  a  second 
thought.  Not  until  one  has  trodden  every 
rung  of  the  ladder  which  has  been  previously 
trodden,  is  he  able  to  mount  a  step  higher. 
And  it  is  the  performance  of  this  task,  wholly, 
or  at  least  in  the  first  part,  that  constitutes  the 
one  so  doing  an  "authority." 

How  often  does  one  hear  an  addle-brained, 
know-nothing  say:  "I  recognize  no  authority; 
I  think  for  myself."  How  shall  one  think  with- 
out ideas?  And  how  is  it  possible  to  obtain 
ideas  apart  from  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge? And  where  can  knowledge  be  obtained 
except  from  those  who  have  it? 

All  "authority"  in  science  and  thought  is 
founded  on  knowledge  of  the  subject  in  ques- 
tion. Socialists  quote  Karl  Marx  as  an  au- 
thority on  political  economy,  because  his  writ- 
ings prove  that  he  knew  more  about  the  pro- 
duction and  distribution  of  wealth  than  any 
man  of  his  century.  Lavoisier  is  an  authority 
in  chemistry,  because  he  know  more  about  the 


A   REPLY   TO   HAECKEL.  117 

composition  of  substances  than  any  three  of 
his  contemporaries. 

But  much  confusion  has  been  wrought,  hy- 
men of  undisputed  authority  in  their  own 
field,  pronouncing  positive  verdicts  in  depart- 
ments where  their  opinions  had  no  value. 
What  a  great  composer  has  to  say  about  the 
value  of  a  certain  note  must  be  respectfully 
considered  as  being  of  importance,  but,  un- 
less he  has  studied  geology,  his  opinions  on 
the  probable  origin  or  age  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains will  have  no  more  value,  and  may  have 
less  than  those  of  the  policeman  on  the  near- 
est corner. 

An  excellent  example  of  the  confusion 
which  may  arise  in  this  way,  was  given  to 
the  world  in  1877,  at  the  Congress  of  Natur- 
alists held  at  Munich  in  September  of  that 
year.  At  that  time  the  naturalists  of  Europe 
were  divided  into  two  opposing  camps,  one 
accepting  and  the  other  rejecting  the  Darwin- 
ian theory  of  "natural  selection."  The  leaders 
of  both  divisions  were  Germans,  though  a 
preponderance  of  the  Germans  favored  Dar- 
win, whilst  the  French,  still  under  the  influ- 
ence of,  or  agreeing  with,  Flourens,  although 
he  had  been  dead  a  decade,  were  almost 
unanimously  opposed. 

The  honors  of  leading  the  fight  for  Darwin- 


]18  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

ism,  at  the  Munich  Congress,  fell  to  Haeckel, 
and  on  the  i8th  of  September  he  threw  down 
the  gage  in  a  brilliant  address  in  which  he  de- 
fended the  ideas  of  the  great  Englishman. 
Haeckel  also  advocated  the  teaching  of  evolu- 
tion in  the  schools.  The  battle  raged  back 
and  forth  between  the  two  armies,  until 
Virchow,  the  great  pathologist,  dropped  a 
bombshell  in  the  Congress  by  boldly  asserting : 
"Darwinism  leads  directly  to  Socialism." 

Here  biological  arguments  ceased.  The  only 
thing  in  order  was  to  clear  the  skirts  of  Dar- 
winism of  the  terrible  charge  of  being  social- 
istic. Of  course  this  task  fell  to  Haeckel,  and 
he  was  loyally  assisted  by  Oscar  Schmidt. 

Writing  in  "Ausland"  two  months  later 
Schmidt  said:  "If  the  Socialists  were  prudent 
they  would  do  their  utmost  to  kill  by  silent 
neglect,  the  theory  of  descent,  for  that  theory 
most  emphatically  proclaims  that  the  Social- 
ist ideas  are  impracticable." 

Haeckel  replied  to  Virchow  at  some  length, 
and  as  that  reply  is  rather  difficult  to  obtain 
I  will  give  it  here  in  full  as  quoted  by  Ferri, 
and  translated  by  Robert  Rives  La  Monte: 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  scientific 
doctrine  which  proclaims  more  openly  than 
the  theory  of  descent,  that  the  equality  of  in- 
dividuals, toward  which  Socialism  tends,  is  an 


A   REPLY   TO   HAECKEL  HO 

impossibility,  that  this  chimerical  equality  is 
in  absolute  contradiction  with  the  necessary 
and,  in  fact,  universal  inequality  of  individu- 
als. 

"Socialism  demands  for  all  citizens  equal 
rights,  equal  duties,  equal  possessions  and 
equal  enjoyments ;  the  theory  of  descent  estab- 
lishes, on  the  contrary,  that  the  realization  of 
these  hopes  is  purely  and  simply  impossible ; 
that  in  human  societies,  as  in  animal  socie- 
ties, neither  the  rights,  nor  the  duties,  nor  the 
possessions,  nor  the  enjoyments  of  all  the 
members  of  a  society  are  or  ever  can  be  equal. 

'The  great  law  of  variation  teaches  —  both 
in  the  general  theory  of  evolution  and  in  the 
smaller  field  of  biology  where  it  becomes  the 
theory  of  descent  —  that  the  variety  of  phe- 
nomena flows  from  an  original  unity,  the  div- 
ersity of  functions  from  a  primitive  identity, 
and  the  complexity  of  organization  from  a 
primordial  simplicity.  The  conditions  of  ex- 
istence for  all  individuals  are,  from  their  very 
birth,  unequal.  There  must  also  be  taken  into 
consideration  the  inherited  qualities  and  the 
innate  tendencies,  which  also  vary  more  or 
less  widely.  In  view  of  all  this,  how  can  the 
work  and  the  reward  be  equal  for  all? 

'The  more  highly  the  social  life  is  devel- 
oped, the  more  important  becomes  the  great 


120  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

principle  of  the  division  of  labor,  the  more 
requisite  it  becomes  for  the  stable  existence 
of  the  state  as  a  whole  that  its  members  should 
distribute  among  themselves  the  multifarious 
tasks  of  life,  each  performing  a  single  func- 
tion; and  as  the  labor  which  must  be  per- 
formed by  the  individuals,  as  well  as  the  ex- 
penditure of  strength,  talent,  money,  etc.j- 
which  it  necessitates,  differs  more  and  more, 
it  is  natural  that  the  remuneration  of  this  la- 
bor must  also  vary  widely.  These  are  facts  so 
simple  and  so  obvious  that  it  seems  to  me 
every  intelligent  and  enlightened  statesman 
ought  to  be  an  advocate  of  the  theory  of 
descent  and  the  general  doctrine  of  evolution 
as  the  best  antidote  for  the  absurd  equalitar- 
ian,  Utopian  notions  of  the  Socialists. 

"And  it  was  Darwinism,  the  theory  of  selec- 
tion, that  Virchow,  in  his  denunciation,  had 
in  mind,  rather  than  the  mere  metamorphic 
development,  the  theory  of  descent,  with  which 
it  is  always  confused!  Darwinism  is  anything 
rather  than  socialistic. 

"If  one  wishes  to  attribute  a  political  tend- 
ency to  this  English  theory  —  which  is  quite 
permissible  —  this  tendency  can  be  nothing 
but  aristocratic;  by  no  means  can  it  be  de- 
mocratic, still  less  socialistic. 

"The  theory  of  selection  teaches  that  in  the 


A  REPLY   TO  HAECKEL  121 

life  of  mankind,  as  in  that  of  plants  and  ani- 
mals, it  is  always  and  everywhere  a  small  and 
privileged  minority  alone  which  succeeds  in 
living  and  developing  itself;  the  immense  ma- 
jority, on  the  contrary  suffer  and  succumb 
more  or  less  prematurely.  Countless  are  the 
seeds  and  eggs  of  every  species  of  plants  and 
animals,  and  the  young  individuals  who  issue 
from  them.  But  the  number  of  those  who 
have  the  good  fortune  to  reach  fully  devel- 
oped maturity  and  to  attain  the  goal  of  their 
existence  is  relatively  insignificant. 

"The  cruel  and  pitiless  'struggle  for  exist- 
ence' which  rages  everywhere  through  ani- 
mated nature,  and  which  in  the  nature  of 
things  must  rage,  this  eternal  and  inexorable 
competition  between  all  living  beings  is  an 
undeniable  fact.  Only  a  small  picked  number 
of  the  strongest  or  fittest  is  able  to  come  forth 
victoriously  from  this  battle  of  competition. 
The  great  majority  of  their  unfortunate  com- 
petitors are  inevitably  destined  to  perish.  It 
is  well  enough  to  deplore  this  tragic  fatality, 
but  one  cannot  deny  or  change  it.  'Many  are 
called,  but  few  are  chosen!' 

"The  selection,  the  'election'  of  these  'elect' 
is  by  absolute  necessity  bound  up  with  the 
rejection  or  destruction  of  the  vast  multitude 
of  beings  whom  they  survived.    And  so  an- 


122  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

Other  learned  Englishman  has  called  the  fun- 
damental principle  of  Darwinism  'the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  the  victory  of  the  best/ 

"At  all  events  the  principle  of  selection  is 
not  in  the  slightest  degree  democratic;  it  is, 
on  the  contrary,  thoroughly  aristocratic.  If 
then,  Darwinism,  carried  out  to  its  ultimate 
logical  consequences,  has,  according  to  Vir- 
chow,  for  the  statesman  'an  extraordinarily 
dangerous  side '  the  danger  is  doubtless  that 
it  favors  aristocratic  aspirations." 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  the  closing  pages 
of  the  second  volume  of  Haeckers  valuable 
work,  "The  History  of  Creation."  We  shall 
find  it  interesting  and  instructive  to  observe 
the  nature  of  the  argument  which  he  there 
uses  with  great  effect  against  Virchow.  Vir- 
chow  had  delivered  his  celebrated  address  at 
Berlin,  which  closed  as  follows:  "It  is  abso- 
lutely certain  that  Man  is  not  descended  from 
apes." 

Haeckel  takes  this  up,  gives  a  resume  of  the 
facts  known  to  zoology  on  this  point,  and  then 
winds  up  with  the  following:  "In  view  of 
this  state  of  affairs,  we  zoologists,  recognized 
as  authorities  on  the  subject,  may  surely  ask, 
How  can  many  so-called  anthropologists  still 
maintain  that  there  exists  no  sort  of  actual 
proofs  of  the  'Derivation  of  Man  from  Apes'? 


A   REPLY   TO   HAECKEL  123 

How  can  Virchow,  Ranke,  and  others,  who 
are  not  zoologists,  in  the  speeches  they  annu- 
ally deliver  at  anthropological  and  other  con- 
gresses, continue  to  declare  that  this  'Pithe- 
coid thesis'  is  an  empty  hypothesis,  an  un- 
proved assertion,  and  a  mere  dream  of  the 
philosophers  of  nature?  How  can  these  an- 
thropologists still  continue  to  ask  for  'certain 
proofs'  of  this  thesis  when  proofs  with  all 
the  clearness  that  could  be  desired  lie  before 
them,  and  are  unanimously  recognized  by  all 
zoologists?  As  regards  Virchow's  often 
quoted  declarations  against  the  Pithecoid 
thesis,  they  have  obtained  great  favor  in  wide 
circles,  only  because  of  the  high  authority 
this  famous  naturalist  enjoys  in  an  entirely 
different  domain  of  science.  His  'cellular  pa.th- 
ology,'  his  ingenious  application  of  the  cell- 
theory  to  the  whole  province  of  medicine, 
introduced  a  grand  advance  in  that  branch  of 
science  thirty  years  ago.  This  great  and  last- 
ing service  rendered  by  him  has,  however,  no 
connection  whatever  with  the  unyielding  and 
negative  position  which,  unfortunately,  Vir- 
chow  persists  in  assuming  towards  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution.'' 

It  probably  never  occurred  to  Haeckel  that 
the  argument  which  he  here  uses  to  meet 
Virchow's    opposition    to    evolution,     would 


124  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

serve  quite  as  effectively  as   a  reply  to  his 
own  opposition  to  Socialism. 

As  regards  Haeckel's  "often  quoted  declara- 
tions against"  Socialism,  "they  have  obtained 
great  favor  in  wide  circles,  only  because  of 
the  high  authority  which  this  famous  natur- 
alist enjoys  in  an  entirely  different  domain  of 
science.  His  biogenetic  principle,  discovered 
in  embryology,  "introduced  a  grand  advance 
in  that  science  thirty  years  ago.  This  great 
and  lasting  service  rendered  by  him  has,  how- 
ever no  connection  whatever  with  the  un- 
yielding and  negative  position  which,  unfor- 
tunately,'' Haeckel  "persists  in  assuming  to- 
wards the  doctrine  of  Socialism. 

Haeckel's  complaint  that  Virchow  could  not 
judge  the  merits  of  evolution  because  he  was 
not  a  zoologist,  is  well  taken.  But  the  Social- 
ist has  as  good  or  better  right  to  assert  that 
Haeckel  was  incapable  of  estimating  the  rela- 
tionship of  Socialism  to  Darwinism,  for  he  cer- 
tainly knew  a  good  deal  less  about  Socialism 
than  Virchow  knew  of  zoology. 

This  is  precisely  the  trouble  with  Haeckel's 
criticism  of  what  he  calls  Socialism.  Of  the 
theories  of  Karl  Marx  and  the  modern  scienti- 
fic Socialists,  he  knew  absolutely  nothing.  The 
Socialism  he  condemned  had  been  abandoned 


A   REPLY   TO  HAECKEL  125 

by    the    Socialists    themselves,  nearly    thirty 
years  before  his  criticism  was  made. 

"Absurd  equalitarian  notions,"  granted;  but 
they  were  not  even  the  sole  property  of  the 
Utopian  Socialists.  They  borrowed  them  from 
the  bourgeois  revolutionists  of  1789.  It  was 
they  who  boasted  of  the  equality  they  would 
set  up.  That  equality,  which,  as  Engels  says, 
only  "materialized  in  bourgeois  equality  be- 
fore the  law."  —  "The  equality  before  the  law 
of  all  commodity-owners."  It  was  this 
struggling  bourgeoisie  that  adopted  as  its 
catch-words,  "liberty,  fraternity,  equality," 
and  applied  them  to  a  typical  bourgeois  use 
when  they  inscribed  them  above  the  entrances 
to  French  prisons. 

A  significant  clause  in  the  second  sentence 
of  Haeckers  criticism  is,  "in  human  societies 
as  in  animal  societies,"  the  duties,  etc.,  of  the 
members  cannot  be  "equal."  The  only  pos- 
sible point  this  could  have  as  a  criticism  of 
Socialism,  would  be  its  use  to  deny  the  pos- 
sibility of  abolishing  social  class  divisions. 
There  is  nothing  to  show  whether  Haeckel  in- 
tended it  to  have  such  a  specific  application, 
but  as  any  other  application  it  might  have 
could  be  in  no  way  opposed  to  the  Socialist 
position,  I  need  only  show  its  failure  in  that 
regard. 


126  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

"Bee''  society  may  be  said  to  have  class 
divisions,  and  it  must  be  conceded  that  these 
classes  cannot  be  abolished  by  anything  that 
could,  by  any  stretch  of  the  imagination,  be 
called  "bee  socialism."  But  the  reason  for  this 
is  not  far  to  seek  and,  when  found,  it  makes 
any  argument  by  analogy,  against  Socialism, 
impossible.  Bee  workers  are  "physiologically" 
incapable  of  discharging  any  other  function  in 
bee  society.  They  are  females,  incapable  of 
maternity.  As  a  result  of  this  the  queen  bee 
is  obliged  to  shoulder  the  whole  burden  of  the 
reproduction  of  the  species,  and  she  is  speci- 
alized in  this  direction  to  such  an  extent,  that 
she  could  not  possibly  be  a  worker.  The  drone, 
as  the  male  breeder,  is  in  the  same  fix,  and 
the  popular  notion  that  they  are  useless  loaf- 
ers,  has  its  origin  in  the  bee  custom  of  apply- 
ing the  boot,  or  something  worse,  to  all  super- 
fluous members  of  the  drone  class. 

"A  hive  of  bees,"  says  Prof.  Huxley,  "is 
an  organic  polity,  a  society  in  which  the  part 
played  by  each  member  is  determined  by  or- 
ganic necessities.  Queens,  workers,  and  drones 
are,  so  to  speak,  castes  divided  from  one  an- 
other by  marked  physical  barriers." 

Says  Ernest  Untermann  in  his  fine  chapter 
on  this  question,  in  "Marxian  Economics": 
"Every  textbook  on  natural  history  describes 


A   REPLY   TO   HAECKEL  137 

the  different  orders.  For  instance,  the  socie- 
ties of  bees  are  'monarchies',  those  of  ants  're- 
publics'. But  in  either  case,  biological  varia- 
tion determines  the  form  of  these  societies. 
Queen  bees,  drones,  and  workers  are  of  or- 
ganically different  structure  and  equipped 
with  different  specialized  organs.  The  queen 
bee  is  equipped  only  for  the  duties  of  con- 
ception  and  the  laying  of  eggs.  The  drone 
cannot  perform  any  other  function  but  that 
of  fertilizing  the  queen.  The  worker  alone  has 
organs  for  gathering  flower  dust,  honey,  and 
manufacturing  wax."  Class  divisions  in  bee 
society  are  therefore  "biological"  and  not 
economic.  But  Haeckel's  comparison  ignores 
this  vital  distinction.  Before  this  argument 
can  be  used  against  the  Socialist  advocacy  of 
class  abolition,  it  must  be  shown  that  a  queen 
cannot  wash  clothes  with  starvation  as  an 
alternative,  and  that  a  pleb  woman  could  not 
wear  a  coronet,  should  her  father  invest  in 
a  busted  duke. 

True  there  are  other  animal  societies  which 
have  no  such  biological  division.  But  these 
have  no  private  property  in  the  means  of  life, 
and  therefore  no  classes.  Pelicans  and  crows 
recognize  only  three  grounds  as  justification 
for  idleness — infancy,  old  age  and  sickness  or 
accident. 


128  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

A  recent  Socialist  writer  said:  "Take  two 
babies  together — the  worker's  baby  and  the 
parasite's  baby.  There  they  are,  both  of  them, 
out  of  the  great  mystery.  Examine  their  soft 
little  bodies.  Do  you  see  spurs  on  the  one 
and  a  saddle  on  the  other?  And  yet,  one  is 
to  grow  up  a  profligate  loafer,  and  the  other 
a  starved  and  beaten  worker.  One  to  rot  at 
the  top ;  the  other  to  be  stunted  and  oppressed 
at  the  bottom." 

Of  course  these  two  babies  would  not  be 
equal,  either  actually  or  potentially,  but  is 
that  any  reason  why  they  should  be  given  an 
unequal  start?  How  are  we  to  find  out  which 
is  the  best  in  any  sense,  if  a  multitude  of  op- 
portunities open  to  the  one  are  to  be  closed  to 
the  other? 

And  here  Haeckel's  implied  parallel  breaks 
down  once  more.  In  nature  the  strong  and 
capable  survive  in  the  struggle  for  existence; 
nature  gives  something  like  a  fair  field  and 
no  favor.  But  in  capitalist  society,  a  puling 
son  of  a  rich  father  is  coddled  to  maturity, 
and  reproduces  others  of  his  kind;  while  the 
lusty  child  of  a  worker  is  murdered  by  poison- 
ous milk,  or  debarred  from  marriage  by  low 
wages. 

In  nature,  "fittest"  does  not  mean  best  in 
any  moral  sense,  except  indirectly,  as  that  the 


A  REPLY   TO   HAECKEL  129 

practice  of  certain  moral  principles  in  animal 
societies  may  constitute,  or  add  to,  fitness.  But 
in  present  society  in  a  vast  number  of  in- 
stances, fitness  does  not  mean  "best"  even  to 
the  extent  that  such  a  word  may  be  used  in  the 
natural  world. 

A  real  estate  "shark''  is  a  libel  on  the  fish. 
An  indispensable  qualification  in  business  is  to 
have  few  scruples  and  be  a  first-class  liar. 
Honesty  and  suicide  are  synonomous  terms. 

The  statement  that  natural  selection  "favors 
aristocratic  aspirations,"  involves  the  same  fal- 
lacy. It  assumes  that  aristocrats  are  on  top 
because  of  fitness  to  be  there.  Recent  revela- 
tions in  Berlin  indicate  that  the  aristocrats  of 
Haeckers  own  country  are  "fittest"  for  the 
garbage  can. 

Haeckel's  main  position  is  that  "the  struggle 
for  existence"  in  nature  is  a  justification  for 
"competition"  in  society.  To  begin  with, 
Kropotkin  has  shown  that  Haeckel  grossly 
misrepresents  nature  when  h^  speaks  of  "the 
cruel,  pitiless  'struggle  for  existence'  which 
rages  everywhere  throughout  animated  na- 
ture and  "between  all  living  beings."  When 
this  is  used  as  a  defense  of  present  society,  it  is 
equal  to  saying  that  human  society  should 
seek  its  models  among  the  lowest  forms  of 
organic  life  rather  than  the  highest.  Haeckel's 


180  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

position  was  taken  by  Spencer  and  received 
the  following  clever  reply  from  Prof.  Ritchie: 
"The  struggle  among  plants  and  the  lower 
animals  is  mainly  between  members  of  the 
same  species;  and  the  individual  competition 
between  human  beings,  which  is  so  much  ad- 
mired by  Mr .  Spencer,  is  of  this  primitive 
kind." 

Kropotkin  says :  "If  we  ask  nature  'who  are 
the  fittest,  those  who  are  continually  at  war 
with  each  other,  or  those  who  support  one 
another?'  we  at  once  see  that  those  animals 
which  acquire  habits  of  mutual  aid  are  un- 
doubtedly the  fittest." 

As  to  the  desirability  of  that  "pitiless  strug- 
gle," Huxley  pertinently  says:  "Of  all  the 
shapes  which  society  has  taken,  that  most 
nearly  approaches  perfection  in  which  the  war 
of  the  individual  against  the  individual  is  most 
strictly  limited." 

Whatever  may  be  the  truth  among  the 
protozoa,  we  are  safe  in  applying  to  society  the 
statement  of  Ruskin :  "Co-operation  is  always 
and  everywhere  the  law  of  life ;  competition  is 
always  and  everywhere  the  law  of  death." 

Human  society  eventually  reaches  a  point  of 
development  where  nature's  haphazard  ways 
are  interfered  with,  and  man  arranges  means 
to  an  end.     Professor  Schiaparelli  thought  he 


A   REPLY   TO   HAECKEL  ISI 

saw  canals  on  Mars,  and  inferred  intelligent 
inhabitants.  The  difference  in  water-ways,  be- 
tween blind  nature  and  a  designing  intelli- 
gence, is  the  difference  between  a  rambling 
river  and  a  straight  canal. 

Now  human  society  has  arrived  at  a  stage 
where  its  consciousness  of  itself  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  self-arrangement,  becomes  a  factor. 
This  is  a  tremendous  step  forward,  and  its 
future  possibilities  seem  to  be  illimitable.  Be- 
fore this  can  be  largely  effective,  however,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  thoroughly  understand  all 
fundamental  social  laws. 

We  had  no  rod  to  rule  the  lightning  until  we 
knew  the  laws  of  its  movement.  There  will  be 
no  real  airship  until  we  master  the  laws  of 
aerial  flight.  Socialism  solves  the  social 
problem,  not  because  it  has,  but  because  it 
is,  an  explanation  of  the  laws  of  social  develop- 
ment in  general,  and  of  existing  society  in 
particular.  On  these  laws  our  faith  is  founded. 
By  consciously  arranging  the  social  institu- 
tions which  so  profoundly  affect  our  lives,  in 
harmony  with  these  laws,  we  shall  cease  to  be 
the  slaves  of  a  blind  necessity. 

As  Engels  has  well  said:  "Manx's  social 
organization,  hitherto  confronting  him  as  a 
necessity  imposed  by  Nature  and  history,  now 
becomes  the  result  of  his  own  free  action.  The 


1^2  fiVOLU'rtON,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

extraneous  objective  forces,  that  have  hitherto 
governed  history,  pass  under  the  control  of 
man  himself.  Only  from  that  time  will  man 
himself  more  and  more  consciously,  make  his 
own  history — only  from  that  time  will  the 
social  causes  set  in  motion  by  him  have,  in 
the  main  and  in  a  constantly  growing  measure, 
the  results  intended  by  him.  It  is  the  ascent 
of  man  from  the  kingdom  of  necessity  to  the 
kingdom  of  freedom." 


VIII. 
SPENCER'S  **SOCIAL  ORGANISM/' 

The  crowning  generalization  of  modern 
thought  is  that  which  presents  the  Universe  as 
a  unity,  inter-related  in  all  its  parts.  By  it, 
the  defenders  of  dualism  are  discredited,  and 
their  theological,  metaphysical  philosophy  is 
thrown  aside.  It  is  no  longer  God  and  Man, 
nor  even  Man  and  God,  but  Man  only,  with 
God  an  anthropomorphic  shadow,  related  to 
man  not  as  his  creator,  but  as  created  by  him. 
God  and  Man  are  not  "two/'  but  in  reality 
"one." 

Modern  science  has  reversed  the  order  of 
their  appearance,  and  also  the  order  of  their 
dependence.  That  which  seemed  to  our  prim- 
itive ancestors  a  living  reality,  a  separate  and 
independent  being,  proves,  when  submitted  to 
the  tests  of  anthropology  and  psychology,  to 
have  been  a  creature  of  their  own  dreams. 

And  thus,  as  a  result  of  scientific  research 
into  the  origin  of  dualism  and  the  nature  of 
dreams,  as  Professor  Clifford  says:  "The  dim 
and  shadowy  outline  of  the  superhuman  deity 
fades  slowly  from  before  us;  and  as  the  mist 

133 


134  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

of  his  presence  floats  aside,  we  perceive  with 
greater  and  greater  clearness,  the  shape  of  a 
yet  grander  and  nobler  figure — the  figure  of 
him  who  made  all  Gods  and  shall  unmaKe 
them.  From  the  dim  dawn  of  history,  and  from 
the  inmost  depths  of  every  soul,  the  face  of 
our  father  man  looks  out  upon  us,  with  the  fire 
of  eternal  youth  in  his  eyes,  and  says :  'Before 
Jehovah  was,  I  am/  " 

The  thinker  who  would  expand  his  intel- 
lectual wings  in  this  monistic  atmosphere, 
must  possess  not  only  a  "discriminating"  mind, 
but  also,  as  Marcus  Hitch  suggests,  a  "unify- 
ing" mind.  There  are  two  errors  he  must 
avoid;  the  creation  of  distinctions  that  do  not 
exist  and  the  ignoring  of  distinctions  that  do. 

The  chief  sinner  against  this  first  canon  of 
dialectical  thinking  is  our  old  friend  the  theolo- 
gian. When  the  evolutionary  naturalists 
demonstrated  the  hopeless  untruth  of  his 
"revealed"  legends  about  the  origin  of  men 
and  thmgs,  he  sought  refuge  in  the  ingenious 
theory  that  these  fables  while  scientifically  in- 
defensible were,  notwithstanding,  spiritually 
true.  In  short,  scientific  truth  and  spiritual 
truth  were  so  distinct  as  to  have  no  vital  re- 
lations. These  "artful  dodgers"  have  relieved 
controversial  literature  of  much  of  its  wonted 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL    ORGANISM"  185 

heaviness  and  contributed  generally  to  the 
gaiety  of  the  nations. 

Socialists  have  always  been  among  the  first 
to  enjoy  these  entertaining  performances,  and 
it  seems  like  divine  retribution  when  these 
same  theological  and  ^'Reverend'*  persons 
tumble  over  into  the  Socialist  camp  and  bring 
their  obsolete  methods  of  thinking  with  them. 

They  dub  themselves  "Christian''  Socialists 
and  proceed  to  show  that  "Socialism  is  a 
philosophy  concerning  the  social  and  economic 
life  of  man,  and  not  the  religious  at  all."  When 
Marx  declared  that  political  and  legal  and 
other  social  institutions  and  ideas  were  the 
result  of  economic  conditions  and  class  inter- 
ests, religious  institutions  and  ideas  were,  of 
course,  exempt. 

After  a  mental  contortion  like  that,  what  is 
to  prevent  a  reconciliation  between  the  17th 
century  twaddle  of  the  methodist  pulpit  and 
the  materialist  conception  of  history? 

Those  who  break  the  second  canon  given, 
are  not  all  theologians.  Among  those  who 
ignore  distinctions  that  do  exist,  the  biological 
sociologist  is  entitled  to  conspicuous  mention. 

August  Comte,  who  "attempted  to  make  of 
sociology  a  sort  of  transcendental  biology," 
had  at  least  this  excuse  that  he  wrote  his 
positivist  philosophy  before  Darwin  published 


136  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

his  "Origin  of  Species ''  and,  therefore,  while 
biology  was  yet  in  long  clothes  and  sociology 
was  unborn.  Although  Comte  is  generally  re- 
garded as  the  founder  of  sociology,  these 
limitations  made  it  impossible  to  do  little  more 
than  invent  the  name  and  foresee  its  possibility. 

These  excuses,  however,  can  scarcely  be  in- 
voked for  Haeckel,  who,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  wholly  ignored  in  his  inferences,  funda- 
mental differences  between  the  division  of 
labor  in  animal  societies  and  that  division  in 
human  societies.  Haeckel's  biological  sociology 
conveniently  overlooks  the  rather  important 
fact  that  while  a  working  bee  can  not  by  any 
possibility  act  as  a  drone,  the  working  man 
has  at  least  no  physical  disabilities  to  prevent 
him  from  doing  anything  that  pertains  to  the 
role  of  a  prince.  Reasoning  by  analogy  is 
always  dangerous,  especially  when  the  analogy 
itself  breaks  down. 

While  it  is  well  to  keep  these  rules  in  mind, 
it  must  be  conceded  that  their  critical  applica- 
tion is  somewhat  limited  when  we  come  to 
Spencer's  famous  analogy  between  animal 
organisms  and  human  societies.  The  *'syn- 
thetic"  philosopher  was  much  Haeckel's 
superior  in  sociology,  and  he  possessed  an 
immense    fund    of    biolog^ical    lore    that    was 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL   ORGANISM"  137 

unavailable  to  Comte  writing  a  quarter  of  a 
century  earlier. 

Thus  Spencer  seems  to  recognize  that  his 
essay  on  "The  Social  Organism"  is  largely  an 
ingenious  analogy,  from  which  conclusions 
must  be  drawn  with  caution.  Not  that  bour- 
geois scientists  have  always  exhibited  a  very 
scientific  temper  in  this  regard.  On  the 
contrary  they  have,  on  every  possible  occasion, 
proclaimed  that  certain  alleged  truths  in 
physics  or  biology  were  in  irreconcilable  con- 
tradiction to  certain  Socialist  conclusions  in 
sociology. 

But  we  may  find  a  key  to  Spencer's  chariness 
in  the  matter  of  drawing  conclusions  in  the 
rather  surprising  fact,  which  will  appear 
presently,  that  the  one  legitimate  conclusion 
which  the  analogy  will  thoroughly  sustain,  is 
an  exact  contradiction  to  all  that  Spencer  had 
ever  proclaimed  on  social  questions. 

The  essay  itself,  like  a  great  deal  of 
Spencer's  writing,  is  prolix  and  wearisome,  so 
we  shall  select  only  his  most  important  and 
striking  comparisons. 

The  introduction  is  excellent  and  has  for  its 
text  Sir  James  Mackintosh's  great  saying — 
great  in  his  non-evolutionary  age  though  very 
common-place  today — "Constitutions  are  not 
made,  but  grow."  He  then  declares  "the  central 


138  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

idea  of  Plato's  model  republic''  to  be  "the 
correspondence  between  the  parts  of  a  society 
and  the  faculties  of  the  human  mind." 

Hobbes,  the  philosopher  of  Malmesbury, 
comes  next  with  his  celebrated  "Leviathan/* 
Hobbes  sought  to  establish  a  still  more  definite 
parallelism;  not,  however  between  a  society 
and  the  mind,  but  between  a  society  and 
the  human  body.  Hobbes'  "Leviathan"  was 
the  Commonwealth  and  he  "carries  this  com- 
parison so  far  as  to  actually  give  a  drawing  of 
the  Leviathan — a  vast  human-shaped  figure, 
whose  body  and  limbs  are  made  up  of  mul- 
titudes of  men." 

Spencer  criticizes  these  analogies  of  Plato 
and  Hobbes  in  detail,  but  finds  the  chief  error 
of  both  writers  to  consist  in  the  assumption  by 
both  "that  the  organization  of  a  society  is 
comparable,  not  simply  to  the  organization  of 
a  living  body  in  general,  but  to  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  human  body  in  particular.  There  is 
no  warrant  whatever  for  assuming  this.  It  is 
in  no  way  implied  by  the  evidence;  and  is 
simply  one  of  those  fancies  which  we  com- 
monly find  mixed  up  with  the  truths  of  early 
speculation."  But,  insists  Spencer:  "The  un- 
tenableness  of  the  particular  parallelisms  above 
instanced,  is  no  ground  for  denying  an  es- 
sential   parallelism ;    since     early    ideas    are 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL    ORGANISM'*  139 

usually  but  vague  adumbrations  of  the  truth." 

Lacking  the  great  generalizations  of  bio- 
logy, it  was,  as  we  have  said,  "impossible  to 
trace  out  the  real  relations  of  special  organiza- 
tions to  organizations  of  another  order." 
Therefore  he  proposes  "to  show  what  are  the 
analogies  which  modern  science  discloses." 

Spencer  then  discovers  four  points  in  which 
an  individual  organism  and  a  society  agree, 
and  four  in  which  they  differ.  The  points  of 
agreement  are: 

(i.)  "That  commencing  as  small  aggrega- 
tions, they  insensibly  augment  in  mass;  some 
of  them  eventually  reaching  ten  thousand 
times  what  they  originally  were." 

(2.)  "That  while  at  first  so  simple  in 
structure  as  to  be  considered  structureless, 
they  assume  in  the  course  of  their  growth 
a  continually  increasing  complexity  of 
structure." 

(3.)  "That  though  in  their  early,  un- 
developed states,  there  exists  in  them  scarcely 
any  mutual  dependence  of  parts,  their  parts 
gradually  acquire  a  mutual  dependence ;  which 
becomes  at  last  so  great,  that  the  activity  and 
life  of  each  part  is  made  possible  only  by  the 
activity  and  life  of  the  rest." 

(4.)  "That  the  life  of  a  society  is  inde- 
pendent of,  and  far  more  prolonged  than  the 


140  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

lives  of  any  of  its  component  units;  who  are 
severally  born,  grow,  work,  reproduce,  and  die, 
while  the  body  politic  composed  of  them  sur- 
vives generation  after  generation,  increasing 
in  mass,  in  completeness  of  structure,  and  in 
functional  activity." 

The  four  points  of  difference  are : 

(i.)  "That  societies  have  no  specific  ex- 
ternal forms." 

(2.)  "That  though  the  living  tissue  where- 
of an  individual  organism  consists,  forms  a 
continuous  mass,  the  living  elements  of  a  so- 
ciety do  not  form  a  continuous  mass;  but  are 
more  or  less  widely  dispersed  over  some  por- 
tion of  the  earth's  surface." 

(3.)  "That  while  the  ultimate  living  ele- 
ments of  an  individual  organism  are  mostly 
fixed  in  their  relative  positions,  those  of  the 
social  organism  are  capable  of  moving  from 
place  to  place." 

(4.)  "The  last  and  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant distinction  is,  that  while  in  the  body 
of  an  animal  only  a  special  tissue  is  endowed 
with  feeling,  in  a  society  all  the  members  are 
endowed  with  feeling." 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that,  while  Spencer 
finds  the  parallelisms  to  increase  in  significance 
the  more  they  are  examined,  the  differences 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL    ORGANISM"  141 

tend  to  break  down  when  they  are  worked  out 
in  detail. 

The  advantage  which  Spencer  had  over 
Plato  and  Hobbes  is  very  clearly  seen  in  the 
first  and  fourth  parallelisms,  neither  of  which 
could  have  been  made  until  twenty-one  years 
before,  when  in  1839,  Theodore  Schwann  de- 
veloped his  great  theory  that  the  body  is  an 
organized  society  of  interconnected  cells.  "The 
importance  of  this  theory/'  says  Professor 
Thatcher,  "can  hardly  be  estimated.  It  gave 
an  entirely  new  view  to  animal  and  vegetable 
life.^'  At  any  rate,  it  served  Spencer  greatly 
in  this  essay. 

The  next  ten  pages  are  devoted  to  organic 
development  from  the  protozoa,  the  lowest 
tiny  animal  forms,  to  Crustacea — crabs  etc., — 
which  are  materially  higher  in  the  animal 
scale.  This  development  is  marked  by  increas- 
ing mutual  dependence  of  parts  and  a  growing 
division  of  labor.  It  is  compared  to  the  de- 
velopment of  society  from  primitive  Bushmen 
to  the  early  Anglo-Saxons,  during  which  cor- 
responding phenomena  are  traced. 

He  escapes  Haeckers  blunder  at  least  to  the 
extent  of  calling  the  two  divisions  of  labor  by 
their  proper  names.  Among  animals  it  is  the 
"physiological''  division  of  labor;  in  society, 
the  "economical"  division  of  labor.     Whether 


142  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

he  would  have  been  able  to  still  perceive  that 
distinction  in  dealing  with  those  ant  and  bee 
communities  where  Haeckel  got  lost,  there  is 
nothing  to  show. 

Spencer's  middle-class  predilections  come 
out  strongly,  and  a  very  pretty  physiological 
justification  is  provided  for  that  wholly  ad- 
mirable section  of  the  community. 

The  first  step  in  the  development  of  an  em- 
bryo is  its  division  into  two  main  layers  of 
cells — the  mucous  layer  and  the  serous  layer. 
The  mucous  layer,  that  fine  inside  skin  of  the 
body  so  to  speak,  absorbs  nutriment.  But 
that  nutriment  must  be  transferred  to  the 
serous  layer  which  builds  up  the  nerves  and 
muscles.  Presently  there  arises  between  these 
two  a  third — the  vascular  layer.  Out  of  this 
third  layer  the  chief  blood  vessels  are  de- 
veloped and  these  vessels  serve  to  transport 
the  nutriment  from  the  inn^r  or  mucous  layer, 
which  gathers  it,  to  the  outer  or  serous  layer, 
which  uses  it  for  the  whole  organization's  up- 
building. 

"Well,"  says  Spencer,  "may  we  not  trace  a 
parallel  step  in  social  progress?  Between  the 
governing  and  the  governed,  there  at  first  exists 
no  intermediate  class;  and  even  in  some  so- 
cieties that  have  reached  considerable  size, 
there  are  scarcely  any  but  the  nobles  and  their 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL    ORGANISM"  148 

kindred  on  the  one  hand,  and  their  serfs  on  the 
other;  the  social  structure  being  such  that 
transfer  of  commodities  takes  place  directly 
from  slaves  to  their  masters.  But  in  societies 
of  a  higher  type,  there  grows  up,  between  these 
two  primitive  classes,  another — the  trading  or 
middle  class.  Equally  at  first  as  now,  we  may 
see  that,  speaking  generally,  this  middle  class 
is  the  analogue  of  the  middle  layer  in  the 
embryo.'' 

It  is  a  pity  to  disturb  this  serene  com- 
placency, by  pointing  out  that  the  real  trans- 
porters of  commodities  are  not  the  members  of 
the  middle  class  who,  as  a  rule,  do  little  and 
live  well,  but  that  section  of  the  working  class 
which  mans  freight  trains,  drives  teams  and 
shoves  trucks.  As  for  that  "higher"  class  of 
cells  which  receives  these  commodities  and 
consumes  them  while  usefully  engaged  in 
building  up  the  nervous  and  muscular  system ; 
such  comparison  could  only  apply  to  society's 
brain  workers,  and  it  contains  no  justification 
for  the  useless  parasitic  type  represented  by 
such  charming  persons  as  Harry  Thaw  and 
Reggie  Vanderbilt. 

Another  very  interesting  point  is  Spencer's 
physiological  vindication  of  profit.  The  limbs, 
glands,  or  other  members  of  an  animal  are  de- 
veloped by  exercise.     But  in  order  "that  any 


144  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

organ  in  a  living  being  may  grow  by  exercise, 
there  needs  to  be  a  due  supply  of  blood."  All 
action  implies  waste;  blood  brings  the  mate- 
rials for  repair;  and  before  there  can  be 
growth,  the  quantity  of  blood  supplied  must 
be  more  than  is  requisite  for  repair. 

"In  a  society  it  is  the  same.  If  to  some 
district  which  elaborates  for  the  community 
particular  commodities — say  the  woolens  of 
Yorkshire — there  comes  an  augmented  de- 
mand ;  and  if  in  fulfillment  of  this  demand,  a 
certain  expenditure  and  wear  and  tear  of  the 
manufacturing  organization  are  incurred ; 
and  if,  in  payment  for  the  extra  quantity  of 
woolens  sent  away  there  comes  back  only 
such  quantity  of  commodities  as  replaces  the 
expenditure,  and  makes  good  the  waste  of  life 
and  machinery;  there  can  clearly  be  no 
growth.  That  there  may  be  growth,  the  com- 
modities obtained  in  return  must  be  more  than 
sufficient  for  these  ends ;  and  just  in  proportion 
as  the  surplus  is  great  will  the  growth  be 
rapid.  Whence  it  is  manifest  that  what  in 
commercial  affairs  we  call  profit,  answers  to 
the  excess  of  nutrition  over  waste  in  a  living 
body." 

This  is  "physiological"  political  economy 
with  a  vengeance  and  shows  to  what  straits 
bourgeois   apologists   are    reduced   to   find   a 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL    ORGANISM"  145 

justification  of  that  exploitation  of  labor  which 
is  the  only  source  of  profit.  In  concluding  this 
point  Spencer  seems  to  satirize  his  own  posi- 
tion and  at  the  same  time  gives  something  that 
looks  very  much  like  a  socialist  explanation  of 
panics.  He  says:  "And  if  in  the  body-politic 
some  part  has  been  stimulated  into  great  pro- 
ductivity, and  afterwards  can  not  get  paid  for 
all  its  produce,  certain  of  its  members  become 
bankrupt,  and  it  decreases  in  size." 

The  truth  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  Spen- 
cer is  wholly  at  sea  the  moment  he  touches 
political  economy,  and  in  place  of  some  ele- 
mentary knowledge  on  that  subject,  we  have 
the  obsolete  theories  of  the  Manchester  School 
proclaimed  in  the  name  of  physiology. 

Then  follows  a  series  of  very  ingenious  com- 
parisons. Following  Liebig,  he  compares  coins 
to  blood  corpuscles  calling  the  later  blood- 
discs  to  enhance  the  analogy  and  concludes: 
"throughout  extensive  divisions  of  the  lower 
animals,  the  blood  contains  no  corpuscles ;  and 
in  societies  of  low  civilization,  there  is  no 
money." 

Then  the  development  of  bloodvessels  in 
lower  animals  is  compared  to  the  development 
of  roads  in  primitive  societies;  their  greater 
perfection  in  higher  animals  comparing  with 
the  railroads  which   more  effectively  convey 


146  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

food  stuflfs  to  the  centers  of  population.  Amid 
much  that  is  fantastic  and  tedious,  he  says: 
"And  in  railways  we  also  see,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  social  organism,  a  system  of  double 
channels  conveying  currents  in  opposite  di- 
rections as  do  the  arteries  and  veins  of  a  well- 
developed  animal." 

"We  come  at  length,"  says  Spencer,  "to  the 
nervous  system."  This  is  by  far  the  most  in- 
teresting item  in  Spencer's  catalogue,  because 
it  is  here  that  the  evolutionary  philosopher  and 
the  Manchester  School  politician  come  into 
open  contradiction. 

"We  have  now  to  compare  the  appliances  by 
which  a  society  as  a  whole,  is  regulated,  with 
those  by  which  the  movements  of  an  individual 
creature  are  regulated." 

Beginning  with  the  nervous  systems  of 
lower  animals  he  discovers  their  inferiority  to 
lie  in  the  absence  of  a  controlling  center.  The 
lower  Annulosa  is  composed  of  a  series  of  ring- 
like segments.  Each  ring  has  its  own  nerve 
ganglia  linked  by  connecting  nerves,  but  "very 
incompletely  dependent  on  any  general  con- 
trolling power.  Hence  it  results  that  when  the 
body  is  cut  in  two,  the  hinder  part  continues 
to  move  forward  under  the  propulsion  of  its 
numerous  legs;  and  that  when  the  chain  of 
gang-lia  has  been  divided  without  severing  the 


SPENCER'S    "SOCIAL    ORGANISM"  U7 

body,  the  hind  limbs  may  be  seen  trying  to 
propel  the  body  in  one  direction,  while  the 
fore  limbs  are  trying  to  propel  it  in  another/' 

As  we  move  up  in  the  animal  world  the 
nervous  system  culminates  in  a  centralized 
brain,  and  similarly  as  society  becomes  more 
complex,  government  appears. 

And  now  the  great  apostle  of  the  non-inter- 
ference of  government  with  the  life  of  society 
is  driven  into  the  glaring  contradiction  of  con- 
tending that  the  highest  animal  organization 
is  that  in  which  the  brain,  which  he  compares 
to  government  in  society,  interferes  and  con- 
trols most  effectively. 

"Strange  as  the  assertion  will  be  thought," 
he  says,  "our  Houses  of  Parliament  discharge, 
in  the  social  economy,  functions  which  are  in 
sundry  respects  comparable  to  those  dis- 
charged by  the  cerebral  masses  in  a  vertebrate 
animal."  Strange  indeed!  Especially  to  Mr, 
Spencer's  disciples. 

Then  Mr.  Spencer  discovers  that  the  kind  of 
brain  activity  displayed  by  the  highest  animals 
best  compares  with  that  form  of  government 
called  "representative." 

He  says:  "It  is  the  nature  of  those  great 
and  latest-developed  ganglia  which  distinguish 
the  higher  animals,  to  interpret  and  combine 
the  multiplied  and  varied  impressions  conveyed 


148  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

to  them  from  all  parts  of  the  system,  and  to 
regulate  the  actions  in  such  a  way  as  duly  to 
regard  them  all ;  so  it  is  in  the  nature  of  those 
great  and  latest-^developed  legislative  bodies 
which  distinguish  the  most  advanced  societies, 
to  interpret  and  combine  the  wishes  of  all 
classes  and  localities  and  to  make  laws  in 
harmony  with  the  general  wants." 

It  would  seem  from  this  that,  a  society 
whose  government  represents  only  the  inter- 
ests of  a  handful  of  the  community  while  the 
great  majority  are  uncared  for,  is  suffering 
from  social  paralysis. 

Before  we  pass  to  the  next  chapter  where 
we  shall  examine  the  position  presented  in 
"The  Man  Versus  The  State"  we  will  observe 
one  break  in  Spencer's  analogy  which  he  fails 
to  notice. 

When  the  brain  of  an  animal  is  wrecked  the 
animal  dies;  it  has  no  choice.  But  when  the 
brain  of  a  society  fails  to  represent  the  inter- 
ests of  the  mass  of  the  people  who  compose 
that  society,  or  when  the  social  brain  runs 
amuck  and  invites  disaster,  society  may  take 
its  choice,  it  may  elect  to  die  or — it  may  get 
a  new  brain. 


IX. 
SPENCER'S  INDIVIDUALISM. 

Individualism  is  dead. 

As  a  theory,  it  has  gone  with  StahFs  "Phlo- 
giston," Cuvier's  ''Cataclysms,"  and  Goethe's 
"Theory  of  Colors"  to  the  museum  of  history. 
The  revolution  in  philosophy,  which  covers 
the  nineteenth  century  and  reaches  back  into 
the  closing  decades  of  the  eighteenth,  has  met 
and  overthrown  it  at  every  point.  Today  it 
lingers  in  the  world  of  thought  a  reminiscence 
of  a  prior  stage  of  social  development,  as  the 
imperfect  remnant  of  the  "third  eyelid"  re- 
mains in  our  bodies  a  surviving  rudiment,  a 
legacy  that  links  us  with  our  extinct  ancestors 
of  the  Silurian  age. 

The  greatest  name  ever  thrown  into  the 
scales  for  Individualism  and  against  Socialism 
is  that  of  Herbert  Spencer.  He  has  the  repu- 
tation of  having  been  the  greatest  Individualist 
of  all  times. 

Many  people,  including  Socialists,  who  are 
not  familiar  with  the  works  of  Spencer  won- 
der how  it  comes  to  pass  that  the. great  evolu- 
tionary philosopher  could  defend  a  theory  so 

149 


150  EVOLUTION.   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

obsolete  and  anti-evolutionary  as  Individual- 
ism. With  this  problem  solved,  Individualism 
is  practically  disposed  of — at  least,  its  greatest 
prop  is  gone. 

All  careful  students  of  the  works  of  the 
"Synthetic"  philosopher,  eventually  recognize 
the  dual  personality  of  Mr.  Spencer;  the  "Dr. 
Jekyir'  of  evolution,  and  the  "Mr.  Hyde"  of 
Individualism. 

The  last  chapter  dealt  mainly  with  the 
former;  this  chapter  will  treat  chiefly  of  the 
latter. 

Mr.  Spencer's  chief  utterances  against  what 
he  conceived  to  be  Socialism  and  in  favor  of 
Individualism  are  to  be  found  in  a  volune  of 
four  essays  entitled,  "The  Man  Versus  the 
State."  In  this  book  Mr.  Spencer  complains 
bitterly  of  the  rapid  extension  of  government 
interference  in  the  England  of  his  day.  He 
declares  these  "Acts  of  Parliament"  to  be  a 
greater  and  greater  restriction  of  the  individual 
rights  of  the  citizen. 

Here  are  a  few  of  the  Acts  which  Spencer 
denounced:  An  Act  directing  the  Board  of 
Trade  to  record  the  draught  of  sea-going 
vessels  leaving  port,  and  another  to  fix  the 
number  of  life-boats  and  the  life-saving  ap- 
pliances such  vessels  should  carry.  An  Act 
making  illegal  a  mine  with  a  single  shaft:  The 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  151 

inspection  of  white  lead  works  to  compel  the 
owners  to  provide  overalls,  respirators,  baths, 
acidulated  drinks,  etc.,  for  the  workmen:  Pro- 
viding for  the  inspection  of  gas  works :  Making 
compulsory  regulations  for  extinguishing  fires 
in  London ;  Taxing  the  locality  for  local  drain- 
age ;  That  bake-houses  should  have  a  periodical 
lime  washing,  and  a  cleaning  with  soap  and 
hot  water  at  least  once  in  six  months;  To  se- 
cure decent  lodgings  for  persons  picking  fruit 
and  vegetables  for  public  consumption;  To 
provide  free  compulsory  education  and  public 
schools;  The  Public  Libraries  Act;  All  the 
Factory  Acts  limiting  child  labor  or  enforcing 
the  protection  of  dangerous  machinery;  The 
Preservation  of  Seabirds  Act;  The  establish- 
ment of  state  telegraphy;  Proposals  to  feed 
children;  Government  endowment  of  scienti- 
fic research;  etc. 

All  these  measures,  and  many  others  of 
similar  nature,  excited  the  indignation  of  the 
greatest  prophet  of  Individualism  because, 
forsooth,  they  modified  somebody's  right  to 
do  as  he  pleased  about  something.  Luckily 
for  England,  Mr.  Spencer  and  a  handful  of 
his  individualist  disciples  stood  alone,  while 
the  electorate  carried  these  laws  through  their 
highest  tribunals. 

One  can  imagine  the  "joy  of  living"  in  an 


152  EVOLUTION.  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

individualist  arcadia  fashioned  after  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's own  heart.  A  working  man  would  be 
able  to  take  up  the  occupation  of  a  sailor.  He 
could  embark  on  the  rotten  old  tub  of  some 
greedy  shipowner,  insured  for  many  times  its 
value,  loaded  to  the  gunwales  and  sure  to  sink 
when  it  got  out  of  sight  of  land  to  where  the 
water  was  a  little  rougher  than  plate  glass. 
Of  course  he  would  be  living  under  a  system 
of  "voluntary  co-operation"  and  "freedom  of 
contract"  and  if  he  didn't  wish  to  go  to  sea 
he  could  stay  at  home  and  —  starve.  There 
would  be  very  little  work  in  port  unloading 
ships,  as  so  many  of  them  would  never  re- 
turn to  be  unloaded.  When  the  insurance 
money  was  paid  the  shipowner  could  give  a 
banquet  and  hold  forth  on  the  individual  right 
)pf  the  sailor  to  get  drowned  in  the  interests 
of  commerce  without  the  government  meddl- 
ing about  life  boats  and  other  expensive  and 
nonsensical  appliances. 

If  he  preferred  .o  work  on  "terra  firma"  he 
might  get  a  job  in  a  mine  with  only  one  shaft 
which  in  case  of  firedamp  would  be  converted 
into  a  furnace.  Then  as  there  would  be  no 
way  to  get  out,  no  socialistically  inclined  per- 
son would  be  able  to  dispute  his  individual 
right  to  stay  in.  If  he  preferred  the  white  lead 
industry  he  might  "get  in"  there,  and  there 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  153 

being  no  respirators,  baths,  or  acidulated 
drinks  he  could  be  a  physical  wreck  in  a  year 
and  a  corpse  in  two.  Or  he  might  try  the  gas- 
works and,  there  being  no  inspectors,  there 
would  be  nothing  to  interfere  with  his  in- 
dividual right  to  be  asphyxiated  in  an  oven 
or  roasted  in  a  retort. 

As  wages  would  be  small,  unions  not  being 
individualist  institutions,  he  might  get  a  cheap 
room  in  the  top  of  an  hotel  without  fire 
escapes,  in  a  town  with  no  fire  engines.  He 
could  live  cheaply  on  bread  from  bakehouses 
that  never  knew  lime  washings  and  had  not 
seen  hot  water  or  soap  for  over  six  months, 
and  eat  fruit  and  vegetables  handled  by  peo- 
ple who  were  not  troubled  with  decent,  let 
alone  sanitary,  lodgings. 

He  would  have  the  liberty  to  stay  at  man- 
ual labor  as  there  would  be  no  public  schools 
or  libraries  to  assist  him  to  qualify  for  any 
profession  such  as,  for  instance,  journalism. 
This  would,  no  doubt,  be  a  blessing  in  dis- 
guise, for  if  he  became  a  writer,  instead  of 
following  the  brilliant  example  of  Mr.  Spen- 
cer, he  might  misuse  his  powers  to  the  detri- 
ment of  the  race  by  advocating  the  limitation, 
or  even  the  abolition,  of  child  labor.  If  he 
married  he  might  be  at  liberty  to  sew  on  his 


154  EVOLUTION,   SOClxiL  AND  ORGANIC 

own  buttons,  his  wife  having  left  her  fingers 
among  the  cogs  of  uncovered  machinery. 

Such  would  be  the  social  heaven^  operated 
on  the  principles  of  the  ''Manchester"  school 
of  politics,  which  mark  the  high-water  of  In- 
dividualism,  and  of  which  Herbert  Spencer 
was  the  chief  apostle. 

Compare  this  attitude  of  mind  with  that  of 
the  Utopian  Socialist,  Robert  Owen,  over 
whom  Spencer  had  the  advantage  of  the  lapse 
of  a  period  of  seventy  years.  In  1815  Owen 
convened  a  large  number  of  cotton  manufac- 
turers at  Glasgow,  Scotland,  to  consider  the 
state  of  the  cotton  trade  which  was  then 
in  great  distress.  To  that  conference  he 
presented  two  proposals;  one  to  help  the 
masters,  the  other  to  benefit  the  workers. 
The  first  was  that  they  should  petition 
parliament  for  the  repeal  of  the  tariff  on 
raw  cotton;  the  second  that  they  should  re- 
quest parliament  to  shorten  the  working 
hours,  and  otherwise  improve  the  conditions 
of  workers  in  the  mills.  The  first  proposal 
carried  unanimously,  but  the  one  on  which 
Owen's  heart  was  set,  was  not  even  seconded. 

Knowing  as  he  did  the  terrible  condition  of 
the  English  working  class  of  that  period,  the 
callous  brutality  of  these  rapacious  masters 
roused  him  to  irony  and  defiance.  He  deliv- 
ered an  address  to  the  conference  which  he 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  155 

had  printed  and    spread  broadcast    in   every 
corner  of  the  country. 

This  is  how  the  lion  turned  on  the  jackals: 
"True  indeed  it  is  that  the  main  pillar  and 
prop  of  the  political  greatness  and  prosperity 
of  our  country  is  manufacture,  which,  as  now 
carried  on,  is  destructive  of  the  health,  morals, 
and  social  comfort  of  the  mass  of  people  en- 
gaged in  it.  It  is  only  since  the  introduction 
of  the  cotton  trade  that  children,  at  an  age 
before  they  have  acquired  strength  or  mental 
instruction,  have  been  forced  into  the  cotton 
mills  —  those  receptacles,  in  too  many  in- 
stances, for  living,  human  skeletons,  almost 
disrobed  of  intellect,  where,  as  the  business 
is  often  now  conducted,  they  linger  out  ?. 
few  years  of  miserable  existence,  acquiring 
every  bad  habit  which  they  may  disseminate 
throughout  society.  It  is  only  since  the  in- 
troduction of  this  trade  that  children  and 
even  grown  people  were  required  to  labor 
more  than  twelve  hours  in  a  day,  not  includ- 
ing the  time  allotted  for  meals.  It  is  only 
since  the  introduction  of  this  trade  that  the 
sole  recreation  of  the  laborer  is  to  be  found 
in  the  pothouse  or  ginshop,  it  is  only  since 
the  introduction  of  this  baneful  trade  that 
poverty,  crime,  and  misery  have  made  rapid 
and  fearful  strides  throughout  the  community. 


156  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

"Shall  we  then  go  unblushihgly,  and  ask  the 
legislators  of  our  country  to  pass  legislative 
acts  to  sanction  and  increase  this  trade  —  to 
sign  the  death  warrants  of  the  strength,  mo- 
rals, and  happiness  of  our  fellow-creatures, 
and  not  attempt  to  propose  corrections  for 
the  evils  which  it  creates?  If  such  be  your 
determination,  I,  for  one,  will  not  join  in  the 
application  —  no,  I  will,  with  all  the  faculties 
I  possess,  oppose  every  attempt  made  to  ex- 
tend the  trade  that,  except  in  name,  is  more 
injurious  to  those  employed  in  it  than  is  the 
slavery  of  the  poor  negroes  in  the  West  In- 
dies, for  deeply  as  I  am  interested  in  the  cot- 
ton manufacture,  highly  as  I  value  the  ex- 
tended political  power  of  my  country,  yet 
knowing  as  I  do,  from  long  experience  both 
here  and  in  England,  the  miseries  which  this 
trade,  as  it  is  now  conducted,  inflicts  on  those 
to  whom  it  gives  employment,  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say:  Perish  the  cotton  trade,  perish 
even  the  political  superiority  of  our  country, 
if  it  depends  on  the  cotton  trade,  rather  than 
that  they  shall  be  upheld  by  the  sacrifice  of 
everything  valuable  in  life." 

Compare  these  noble  utterances  of  the  great- 
souled  Utopian  Socialist  with  the  sneers  at 
the  most  unfortunate  element  of  the  working 
class  which  disfigure  the  pages  of  "The  Man 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  lo7 

Versus  the  State"  and  let  the  Individualist 
take  whatever  satisfaction  he  can  get  from 
the  contrast. 

But  Spencer's  reactionary  views  did  not 
stop  with  opposition  to  every  attempt  to  al- 
leviate the  condition  of  the  wealth  producers 
of  his  day. 

As  an  individualist,  he  would  tolerate  no 
''government  interference"  with  the  rights  of 
individuals  who  wished  to  shoot  sea-birds 
which  they  could  not  get,  but  which  usually 
flew  out  to  sea,  and  died  floating,  with  a 
broken  wing.  Why  should  these  lofty  minded 
people  be  interfered  with?  Were  they  not  the 
prototypes  of  our  own  Roosevelt,  who  is  al- 
ways ready  to  manifest  his  love  of  nature  by 
killing  everything  in  sight? 

What  a  pity  these  individualists  were  not 
allowed  to  have  the  British  telegraph  system 
managed  by  a  gang  of  financial  pirates  like 
the  owners  of  the  "Western  Union"  and  the 
"Postal"  of  this  country. 

State  repression  of  knowledge  having 
proved  such  a  bad  thing  in  the  middle  ages, 
state  encouragement  of  learning  must  of 
course,  needs  be  equally  bad  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  "Government  endowment  of  re- 
search," indeed!  Not  for  the  individualist 
champion.  And  yet  England  holds  the  world's 


158  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

honors  in  biology,  because  of  Darwin,  whose 
opportunity  came  through  the  government 
exploration  of  "The  Beagle,''  and  Huxley,  who 
began  his  brilliant  career  with  the  govern- 
ment expedition  of  the  "Rattlesnake."  As 
England  led  the  world  in  the  middle  of  the 
century  so  France  had  held  first  place  during 
its  first  quarter,  and  that  because  the  French 
government  sent  out  scientific  expeditions  to 
the  tropics,  which,  on  their  return  loaded 
down  the  shelves  of  the  "Jardin  des  Plantes" 
with  specimens  which  made  possible  those 
greatest  of  her  thinkers,  Lamarck,  Cuvier  and 
Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire. 

When  the  feeding  of  school  children  is 
thrown  as  a  charge  against  Socialism,  we  are 
proud  to  plead  guilty.  It  is  our  glory  that 
the  only  cities  in  the  world  that  have  no  starv- 
ing children  behind  school  benches  are  those 
cities  such  as  Lille,  Ivry,  Montlucon,  etc. 
with  a  Socialist  majority  in  the  town  coun- 
cils, which  removed  the  disgrace. 

Such  then  were  the  arguments  of  this  flag 
bearer  of  Individualism,  who  has  supplied  the 
opponents  of  Socialism  with  objections  these 
thirty  years.  His  individualist  philosophy  is 
now  so  thoroughly  discredited  as  to  call  for 
no  answer  were  it  not  for  the  fact  pointed  out 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  I59 

by  Huxley,  that  erroneous  ideas  do  not  die 
just  simply  because  they  have  been  killed. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  v/heel  into  position 
the  heavy  artillery  of  Marx  to  overthrow  this 
house  of  cards.  Spencer  is  a  sufficient  reply 
to  Spencer. 

Here  is  the  great  contradiction.  Spencer, 
the  great  biologist,  says  the  brain  is  to  the 
animal  what  the  Government  is  to  a  society, 
(i)  The  more  efifectivel}^  and  completely  the 
brain  controls  the  members  composing  the 
animal  body,  the  higher  its  place  in  the  or- 
ganic scale.  (2)  The  less  effectively  and  com- 
pletely the  Government  controls  the  members 
of  the  body  politic  the  better  will  be  the  so- 
ciety. 

Sociological  literature  has  failed  to  produce 
any  individualist  champion  able  to  reconcile 
this  astonishing  contradiction.  And  so  there 
it  stands  plainly  before  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's readers. 

"Suppose,"  says  Professor  Huxley,  "that,  in 
accordance  with  this  view,  each  muscle  were 
to  maintain  that  the  nervous  system  had  no 
right  to  interfere  with  its  contraction  except 
to  prevent  it  from  hindering  the  contraction 
of  another  muscle;  or  each  gland,  that  it  had 
a  right  to  secrete,  so  long  as  its  secretion  in- 
terfered with  no  other ;  suppose  every  separate 


160  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

cell  were  left  free  to  follow  its  own  "interest" 
and  laissez-faire  lord  of  all,  v/hat  would  come 
of  the  body  physiological?  The  fact  is  that 
the  sovereign  power  of  the  body  thinks  for  the 
physiological  organism,  acts  for  it,  and  rules 
the  individual  components  with  a  rod  of  iron. 
Even  the  blood  corpuscles  can't  hold  a  public 
meeting  without  being  accused  of  "conges- 
tion" —  and  the  brain,  like  other  despots 
whom  we  have  known,  calls  out  at  once  for 
the  use  of  sharp  steel  against  them." 

This  is  the  rock  upon  which  Spencerian  In- 
dividualism struck  and  went  to  pieces,  inde- 
pendently of  those  great  forces,  which  I  shall 
point  out,  that  made  for  its  disintegration. 

These  two  contradictory  positions  are  the 
upper  and  nether  millstones  between  which 
the  individualistic  philosophy  of  Anarchism  is 
ground  to  powder.  Socialists  are  not  stupid 
enough  to  argue  that  because  society  can  get 
along  without  a  king  therefore  an  orchestra 
should  have  "no  Head."  We  are  also  able  to 
distinguish  between  "the  state"  which  Social- 
ism will  abolish,  and  the  "administration  of 
industry"  which  it  will  establish. 

Every  step  forward  in  modern  thought  has 
emphasized  the  importance  of  that  factor 
called  "environment."  The  evolution  philoso- 
phy is  an  environment  philosophy.    Lamarck, 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  151 

the  greatest  pioneer  of  modern  science,  makes 
a  change  of  environment  the  prime  necessity 
of  organic  development.  Darwin  makes  en- 
vironment the  selective  factor  in  "Natural  Se- 
lection" and  in  this  he  is  supported  by  every 
living  biologist  of  note.  Karl  Marx  paralleled 
these  great  advances  by  discovering  that  every 
political  philosophy  takes  its  origin  in  some 
particular  economic  environment.  This  is  true 
of  Socialism  and  Individualism  alike. 

And  so  if  we  wish  to  understand  the  his- 
toric significance  of  Individualism  we  must  go 
back  to  the  period  of  its  birth  and  examine  the 
social  processes  of  production  of  that  day. 
This  takes  us  back  to  the  early  years  of  the 
19th  century. 

In  the  closing  half  of  the  l8th  century,  la- 
borers individually  owned  the  small  and  crude 
tools  by  which  they  made  their  living.  In  this 
stage  of  social  development  the  laborer  own- 
ing the  tools  he  used,  appropriated  the  result. 
There  was  here  no  contradiction  and  what- 
ever notion  of  justice  is  supposed  to  inhere  in 
the  "individual  ownership  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction" derives  its  whole  force  from  the  eco- 
nomic status  of  the  worker  of  this  period.  If 
that  status  had  remained  unchanged.  Social- 
ism would  never  have  been  heard  of.  But  in 
the  process  of  evolution  the  truth  and  justice 


162  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

of  the  i8th  century  became  a  lie  and  a  social 
wrong  in  the  19th. 

This  transformation  was  wrought  by  the 
development  of  machinery.  It  was  impossible 
for  every  individual  worker  to  own  a  large 
machine,  and  so  some  men  became  toolless 
wage  laborers  employed  by  the  owners  of  ma- 
chinery. This  is  the  beginning  of  the  present 
labor  problem  and  here  arises  the  struggle  in 
the  world  of  ideas  between  the  philosophy  of 
Individualism  and  that  of  Socialism. 

Let  us  examine  the  vital  change  which  had 
taken  place  even  before  we  reach  the  middle 
of  the  last  century.  Now,  one  man  uses  the 
tools,  but  another  owns  them  and  appropri- 
ates the  result.  And  this  is  the  economic 
foundation  of  the  class  war  between  the  ex- 
ploited wage  worker  and  the  exploiting  capi- 
talist. 

But  the  individualist  theories  proper  to  the 
i8th  century,  and  its  mode  of  wealth  produc- 
tion, passed  over  into  the  19th  where  their 
economic  justification  had  ceased.  As  the  for- 
tunate individual  owners  of  machinery  found 
themselves  growing  rich  at  a  great  rate  apart 
from  their  own  individual  efforts,  they  became 
enthusiastic  supporters  of  "Individualism"  and 
eventually  founded  the  "Manchester"  school 
of  politiCvS,  which  had  Herbert  Spencer  as  its 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  163 

chief  mouth-piece  and  Henry  George  as  a 
somewhat  belated  trumpeter. 

In  this  heyday  of  Individualism  the  "rate 
of  profit"  was  at  its  highest,  one  Lancashire 
cotton  spinner  boasting  of  one  thousand  per 
cent.  But  the  social  hell  in  which  the  English 
working  class  of  this  period  lived  is  without 
parallel  in  modern  times.  Its  system  of  child 
labor,  as  recorded  in  the  government  blue 
books  as  well  as  already  shown  by  Owen, 
was  indescribably  horrible,  but  the  manufac- 
turers were  opposed  to  "government  interfer- 
ence'' and  the  individualist  philosophy  and  its 
bogey  of  "paternalism"  was  their  craven  plea. 

With  the  grouping  of  the  workers  in  fac- 
tories production  became  socialized,  and  now 
came  this  contradiction,  production  was  so- 
cial while  ownership  and  appropriation  were 
individual.  The  Socialists  of  that  period  right- 
ly maintained  that  society  should  either  go 
back  in  production  to  the  individual  form  so 
as  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  existing  indi- 
vidual form  of  ownership  and  appropriation, 
or  it  should  adopt  social  ownership  and  social 
appropriation  to  harmonize  with  the  already 
existing  social  production. 

But  the  wheel  of  history  never  revolves 
backward,  and  the  latter  solution  is  destined 
ultimately  to  prevail.    Social  evolution  has  al- 


164  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

ready  carried  us  far  in  that  direction.  With 
the  organization  of  capital  individual  owner- 
ship disappeared  and  class  ownership  has 
taken  its  place.  The  struggle  of  the  20th 
century  is  not  a  struggle  between  individu- 
als, it  is  a  struggle  between  classes,  and  so 
Individualism  has  lost  its  meaning  —  it  is 
defunct. 

With  the  disappearance  of  the  economic 
foundation  of  Individualism,  and  the  over- 
throw of  the  philosophic  superstructure  erected 
thereon,  all  its  watchwords  have  lost  their 
power  to  charm.  Free  trade,  free  labor,  free 
contract,  free  competition;  all  these  are  the 
lingering  and  belated  echoes  of  a  day  that  is 
gone. 

"Free  trade"  was  the  protest  of  the  rising 
capitalist  class  against  the  trammels  placed 
upon  its  commerce  by  the  feudal  regime. 
Now  it  appears  in  a  new  role;  it  is  the  cry 
of  the  small  capitalist  against  those  "predatory 
trusts"  which  discovered  that  competition  is 
not  the  life  but  the  death  of  trade,  and  are 
using  protection  to  destroy  their  weaker  fel- 
low-robbers. 

"Free  labor"  was  the  demand  of  the  capi- 
talist that  the  serf  should  be  released  from 
the  soil  in  the  country  so  that  he  might  be 
available   for   exploitation   in  the   factory,   in 


SPENCER'S  INDIVIDUALISM  165 

the  City.  In  England  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  give  this  defunct  phrase  a  new  lease 
of  life  by  the  "Free  Labor  Association"  an 
organization  which  had  this  in  common  with 
our  "Citizen's  Alliance"  that  it  sought  to  en- 
courage  the  dear  good  workingman  to  keep 
out  of  the  "tyrannical"  labor  unions. 

"Freedom  of  contract"  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called  "Voluntary  Co-operation"  never  ex- 
isted in  capitalist  society  and  has  never  been 
anything  but  a  grim  joke  or  a  plain  lie.  Where 
IS  the  freedom  or  voluntaryism  of  the  worker 
who  must  work  for  what  he  can  get  or  starve 
like  a  dog  in  the  street? 

The  effects  of  "free  Competition"  in  Eng- 
land in  the  early  days  of  capitalism,  where  it 
was  most  free^  were  such  that  none  but  a 
fiend  would  wish  them  recalled.  The  "might 
have  been"  halo  with  which  present  day  in- 
dividualists seek  to  surround  this  principle,  is 
a  midsummer  night's  dream  that  never  had 
any  existence  in  the  world  of  reality  and  can 
never  be  realized,  except  in  the  phantasmo- 
goria  of  their  own  ideological  imaginations. 

Individualism  in  all  its  forms  has  become 
an  anachronism.  The  deified  ego  of  Max  Stir- 
ner,  which  imagines  itself  sitting  enthroned 
on  the  pinnacle  of  the  universe,  directing  the 
motions  of  the  planet  Jupiter  by  crooking  its 


166  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

little  finger,  is  an  ideological  phantasm,  which 
has  no  connection  with  the  solid  earth.  The 
flowery  exhortations  of  Emerson,  to  live  a 
noble  life  in  ignoble  surroundings,  is  an  invi- 
tation to  attempt  what  is,  for  the  mass,  im- 
possible. Any  philosophy  which  proposes  to 
save  the  individual  without  transforming  his 
social  environment  stands  condemned  by  mod- 
ern science. 

If,  with  a  society  more  highly  organized 
than  any  known  to  history,  we  still  have  anar- 
chy in  the  production  and  distribution  of  our 
wealth,  the  remedy  is,  not  less  social  organi- 
zation, but  more.  If  with  all  our  dental  science 
toothache  still  exists,  the  cure  is  not  fewer 
dentists,  but  more  dentistry.  The  need  of  to- 
day is  not  less  society,  but  more  social  organi- 
zation. There  is  no  hope  in  going  back  to  the 
small  production  of  sixty  years  ago  as  Hearst 
and  Bryan  desire.  Increasing  the  number  of 
bandits  in  any  society  is  not  the  concern  of 
their  victims.  The  golden  age  of  labor  is  not 
in  the  past  but  in  the  future.  The  labor  prob- 
lem cannot  be  solved  by  going  back  to  the 
scramble  of  the  hog-pen  or  the  methods  of 
the  jungle.  There  is  no  succour  in  flying  at 
each  other's  throats  in  the  name  of  business, 

Freedom  cannot  live  in  a  society  rent  by 
class  wars.    Her  conquests  are  only  possible 


SPENCER'S   INDIVIDUALISM  167 

With  a  humanity  united  to  subdue  the  cosmic 
world  by  which  it  is  interprenetrated  and  sur- 
rounded. 

Happily  for  us,  society  evolves  independ- 
ently of  anybody's  opiniqn.  Our  opinions  fol- 
low blindly  and  gropingly  in  the  rear.  The 
opinions  of  individualists  do  not  manufacture 
social  laws,  according  to  certain  ethical  re- 
quirements; they  interpret  and  explain  those 
laws  which  they  discover  in  operation.  The 
fundamental  question  is  not,  "is  Individualism 
better  than  Socialism?''  but  "Is  society  mov- 
ing in  the  direction  of  the  one  or  the  other?" 

To  answer  this  question  it  is  only  necessary 
to  compare  the  world  of  to-day  with  that  of 
ten  or  even  five  years  ago.  America  moves 
steadily  toward  Socialism,  while  Europe  ad- 
vances in  great  leaps.  Every  civilized  country 
tells  the  same  story,  and  the  recent  develop- 
ment of  Finland  and  Austria  astonished  the 
world. 

Society  moves  forward,  as  irresistibly  as 
the  ocean  tides,  and  it  moves  in  a  direction 
predicted  by  those  greatest  thinkers  of  this 
or  any  age  —  the  men  who  linked  their  lives 
with  the  blood  and  the  tears  and  the  struggles 
of  half  a  century  in  the  greatest  cause  that 
ever  throbbed  in  the  brain  of  man  —  the  cause 
of  Socialism. 


X. 

CIVILIZATION- 
WARD    AND     DIETZGEN 

One  of  the  darkest  curses  that  has  fallen 
on  the  working  class  is  its  being  shut  out  of 
the  wondrous  world  of  modern  thought.  The 
great  gates  of  the  Temple  of  Science  are 
clanged  in  its  face,  and  its  mind  is  fed  on  the 
theological  garbage  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
the  school,  the  press,  and  especially  the  pul- 
pit, ideas  are  gravely  presented  as  serious 
truths,  which  are  known  by  all  university  men 
to  be  thoroughly  exploded  lies. 

A  twentieth  century  newspaper  will  braz- 
enly devote  a  whole  page  to  presenting,  with 
pictorial  illustrations,  alleged  recently  discov- 
ered proofs  of  the  truth  of  that  Genesis  legend 
which  has  done  such  loyal  service  to  the  rul- 
ing class  by  stultifying  the  brains  of  its  vic- 
tims. These  hypocritical  displays  are  never 
publicly  contradicted,  although  every  man 
with  the  least  smattering  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge, including  the  editors,  knows  how  utterly 
false  they  are.    These  worthies  indulge  in  a 

168 


CIVILIZATION-WARD    AND    DIETZGEN       169 

sly  grin  and  lower  one  eyelid,  for  it  is  gen- 
erally understood  among  them  that  the  great 
donkey  —  the  working  class  —  will  only  con- 
sent to  carry  everybody's  burdens  in  addition 
to  its  own,  just  so  long  as  it  is  kept  in  child- 
ish ignorance  of  everything  it  ought  to  know. 

And  this  is  not  all.  Now  that  a  great  body 
of  workingmen  are  discarding  these  ancient 
lies,  and  groping  for  those  great  truths  that 
contain  the  germs  of  their  redemption,  the  of- 
ficial savants,  true  servants  of  the  ruling  class, 
twist  and  warp  their  own  science  in  order  to 
make  it  contradict  every  working  class  idea. 

This  attitude  of  the  time  serving  intellect- 
ual lackeys  of  the  professorial  chairs  has 
brought  with  it  another  blighting  curse  —  it 
has  made  a  considerable  number  of  working 
men  suspicious  of  modern  science  itself.  It  is 
an  old-time  tragedy,  this  breaking  with  one's 
best  friend  because  of  the  groundless  calumn- 
ies of  an  interested  enemy. 

This  terribly  mistaken  antagonism  to  sci- 
ence has  unfortunately  found  its  way,  in  some 
measure,  into  the  Socialist  movement,  though 
happily,  increasing  acquaintance  with  Social- 
ism's classic  literature  is  breaking  it  down. 
In  this  connection  the  following  passage  from 
the  pen  of  Isador  Ladoff  is  very  pertinent: 

"Rationalistic    modern    Socialism   is  based, 


170  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

not  exclusively  on  certain  economic  theories 
and  maxims,  as  some  narrow-minded  'Social- 
ists pure  and  simple'  think  and  would  fain 
make  us  believe^  but  on  the  broad  foundation 
of  modern  science  and  thought.  The  economic 
theories  peculiar  to  modern  Socialism  are  de- 
rived from  the  application  of  the  results  of  the 
achievements  of  modern  knowledge  and  phi- 
losophy to  the  field  of  social  economics.  The 
trouble  with  the  'Socialists  pure  and  simple' 
IS  in  the  extreme  limitation  of  their  mental 
horizon.  They  happen  to  know,  or  rather 
imagine  they  have  mastered  Marxian  econom- 
ics, while  modern  science  and  philosophy  re- 
mains to  them  a  sealed  letter.  That  is  why 
they  get  irritated  whenever  and  wherever  they 
meet  in  the  socialistic  press  an  article  con- 
taining something  else  than  the  everlasting 
parrot-like  repetitions  of  pseudo-socialistic 
commonplaces  and  shibboleths.  Every  attempt 
to  present  to  the  attention  of  the  readers  of 
socialistic  publications,  glimpses  of  the  radi- 
ant world  of  science  and  philosophy,  leading 
up  to  socialistic  ideas  and  ideals  in  all  their 
world-redeeming  significance,  appears  to  the 
simpleminded  and  superstitious  simon-pure 
Socialists  as  an  attack  on  somebody  or  some- 
thing, as  a  heresy  and  heterodoxy  of  some 
kind.    To  such  people  the  religion  of  science 


CIVILIZATION— WARD    AND    DIETZGEN        171 

is  the  religion  of  ignorance  and  vice  versa, 
ignorance  is  their  religion  and  science." 

The  use  of  science  and  philosophy  by  the 
ruling  class  as  a  pretence  for  the  appropria- 
tion of  the  lion's  share  of  the  wealth  produced 
by  labor  does  not  prove  that  workingmen 
should  abandon  philosophy  as  useless  to  their 
cause.  On  the  contrary,  as  Dietzgen  says: 
''Philosophy  is  a  subject  which  closely  con- 
cerns the  working  class,"  and  he  adds :  "This, 
of  course,  does  by  no  means  imply  that  every 
workingman  should  try  to  become  acquainted 
with  philosophy  and  study  the  relation  be- 
tween the  idea  and  matter.  From  the  fact 
that  we  all  eat  bread  does  not  follow  that  we 
must  all  understand  milling  and  baking.  But 
just  as  we  need  millers  and  bakers,  so  does 
the  working  class  stand  in  need  of  keen  schol- 
ars who  can  follow  up  the  tortuous  ways  of 
the  false  priests  and  lay  bare  the  inanity  of 
their  tricks." 

It  is  quite  clear  that  working  men,  instead 
of  underestimating  the  value  of  mental  train- 
ing, should  remember  what  a  terrible  weapon 
it  has  proved  in  the  hands  of  their  enemies. 
It  is  precisely  because  the  workers  have  lack- 
ed this  weapon,  that  in  spite  of  their  over- 
whelming numbers  and  physical  strength, 
they  have  always  been  outwitted.  "The  eman- 


172  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

cipation  of  the  working  classes,"  concludes 
Dietzgen,  "requires  that  they  should  lay  hold 
on  the  science  of  the  century/' 

Lester  F.  Ward,  whose  theories  we  shall 
now  examine,  warns  us  against  the  erroneous 
supposition  "formerly  quite  prevalent,"  that 
"science  consists  in  the  discovery  of  facts." 
He  maintains  that  "there  is  not  a  single  sci- 
ence of  which  this  is  true,  and  a  much  more 
nearly  correct  definition  would  be  that  science 
consists  in  reasoning  about  facts." 

We  may  recall  here  that  learned  body  which 
sneered  at  Darwin  as  "a  mere  theorizer"  and 
conferred  its  honors  upon  an  unknown  man 
who  had  collected  some  facts  about  butter- 
flies but  had  carefully  avoided  "reasoning 
about  them."  Of  course  the  value  of  this  rea- 
soning is  that  it  leads  to  the  discovery  of  those 
laws  or  generalizations  which  reveal  the  rela- 
tion of  the  facts  to  each  other,  and  thus  en- 
ables us  to  appreciate  their  real  significance. 

Therefore  we  might  venture  to  push  the 
matter  a  little  further  and  define  science  as 
the  discovery  of  laws.  But  for  the  uniformity 
and  invariability  of  physical  phenomena,  as- 
tronomy would  be  impossible.  The  discovery 
of  evolution  laid  the  foundations  of  modern 
biology.  Dalton's  theory  of  atoms  and  Lavoi- 
sier's    permanence    of    matter    emancipated 


CIVILIZATION-WARD    AND    DIETZGEN        HS 

chemistry  from  the  superstitions  of  alchemy. 
Ward  is  therefore  on  solid  ground  when  he 
maintains  that  "the  indispensable  foundation 
of  all  economic  and  social  science"  consists 
in  the  fact  that  "all  human  activities  and  all 
social  phenomena  are  rigidly  subject  to  nat- 
ural law."  It  is  just  the  difficulty  of  discern- 
ing uniform  laws  amidst  the  highly  complex 
phenomena  of  society  that  delays  the  proper 
development  of  sociology,  although,  as  we 
have  seen,  this  difficulty  is  materially  aug- 
mented by  the  class  interests  at  stake. 

Again,  just  as  biology  was  hindered  in  its 
growth  by  the  doctrine  of  special  creations 
and,  still  earlier,  Copernican  astronomy  was 
checked  by  the  geocentric  theory,  so  now  the 
progress  of  sociology  is  restrained  by  the  doc- 
trine of  divine  providence.  Believers  in  divine 
providence  are  well  represented  by  the  Hin- 
doo who  in  his  lesson  on  English  composition 
spoke  of  his  father  as  having  "died  according 
to  the  caprice  of  God  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing." 

It  is  precisely  because  "caprice"  can  not  be 
understood  and  cannot  therefore,  be  made  the 
basis  of  prevision,  that  it  can  not  be  admitted 
into  the  domam  of  science.  Science,  as  Star- 
cke  well  said,  is  founded  on  "faith  in  the  uni- 
versality of  causation."  If  the  activities  of  men 


174  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL.  AND  ORGANIC 

and  the  policies  of  nations  are  not  ruled  by 
cause  and  effect  a  science  of  society  is  im- 
possible. 

And  yet,  contends  Ward,  it  was  the  very 
adoption  of  this  "altogether  sound  abstract 
principle"  that  "led  to  the  greatest  and  most 
fundamental  of  all  economic  errors,  an  error 
which  has  found  its  way  into  the  heart  of 
modern  scientific  philosophy,  widely  influenc- 
ing public  opinion,  and  offering  a  stubborn 
resistance  to  all  efforts  to  dislodge  it/' 

And  now  we  come  to  the  keynote  of  Ward's 
whole  system  and  at  the  same  time  to  the 
point  where  he  completely  breaks  with  the 
biological  sociologists.  The  error,  which  Ward 
attributes  to  them  all^  the  refutation  of  which 
is  the  main  object  of  his  work^  is  described 
as  follows: 

"This  error  consists  in  practically  ignoring 
the  existence  of  a  rational  faculty  in  man, 
which,  while  it  does  not  render  his  actions 
any  less  subject  to  natural  laws,  so  enorm- 
ously complicates  them  that  they  can  no 
longer  be  brought  within  the  simple  formulas 
that  suffice  in  the  calculus  of  mere  animal  mo- 
tives. This  element  creeps  stealthily  in  be- 
tween the  child  and  the  adult,  and  all  un- 
noticed puts  the  best  laid  schemes  of  econom- 
ists and  philosophers  altogether  aglee.  A  great 


CIVILIZATION-WARD    AND    DIETZGEN       175 

psychic  factor  has  been  left  out  of  the  ac- 
count, the  intellectual  or  rational  factor,  and 
this  factor  is  so  stupendous  that  there  is  no 
room  for  astonishment  in  contemplating  the 
magnitude  of  the  error  which  its  omission  has 
caused/' 

This  is  the  foundation  stone  of  Ward's  so- 
ciology. With  great  care  he  elaborates  the 
vital  difference  between  the  economy  of  na- 
ture with  its  blind  forces,  and  the  economy  of 
society  with  its  mental  arrangement  of  means 
to  ends.  He  marshals  that  well-known  array 
of  facts  which  prove  the  tremendous  waste 
continually  going  on  in  the  natural  world. 

According  to  M.  Quatrefages,  two  succes- 
sive generations  of  a  single  plant-louse  would 
cover  eight  acres.  A  large  chestnut  tree  in 
June  contains  as  much  as  a  ton  of  pollen. 
Considering  the  size  of  pollen-grain  the  num- 
ber on  such  a  tree  would  be  next  to  incon- 
ceivable. Burst  a  puflf-ball  and  there  arises 
from  it  a  cloud  that  fills  the  air  for  some  dis- 
tance around.  This  cloud  consists  of  an  al- 
most infinite  number  of  exceedingly  minute 
spores,  each  of  which  should  it  by  the  rarest 
chance  fall  upon  a  favorable  spot,  is  capable 
of  reproducing  the  fungus  to  which  it  belongs. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  all  this  enormous  repro- 
ductivity  the  population  of  these  species  re- 


176  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL.  AND  ORGANIC 

mains  practically  stationary.  Ward  objects 
very  strongly  to  this  insane  waste  of  nature 
being  set  up  as  a  model  for  human  society, 
and  he  is  entitled  to  the  sympathy  of  Social- 
ists who  have  always  protested  against  the 
planless  anarchy  of  capitalist  production, 
which  however,  bad  as  it  is,  can  hardly  be 
considered  a  circumstance  compared  with  the 
random  waste  of  nature. 

"The  waste  of  being/'  says  Asa  Gray,  "is 
enormous,  far  beyond  the  common  apprehen- 
sion. Seeds,  eggs,  and  other  germs,  are  de- 
signed to  be  plants  and  animals,  but  not  one 
of  a  thousand  or  a  million  achieves  its  de- 
stiny." And  Gray  quotes  with  approval  from 
an  article  in  the  Westminster  Review :  "When 
we  find  that  the  sowing  is  a  scattering  at 
random,  and  that  for  one  being  provided  for 
and  living,  ten  thousand  perish  unprovided 
for,  we  must  allow  that  the  existing  order 
would  be  considered  the  worst  disorder  in  any 
human  sphere  of  action,'* 

Ward,  of  course,  takes  the  same  view:  "No 
one  will  object  to  having  nature's  methods 
fully  explained  and  exposed,  and  thoroughly 
taught  as  a  great  truth  of  science.  It  is  only 
when  it  is  held  up  as  a  model  to  be  followed 
by  man  and  all  are  forbidden  to  'meddle'  with 
its  operations  that    it  becomes    necessary  to 


CIVILIZATION-WARD    AND    DIETZGEN       177 

protest.  I  shall  endeavor  still  further  to  show 
that  it  IS  wholly  at  variance  with  anything 
that  a  rational  being  would  ever  conceive  of, 
and  that  if  a  being  supposed  to  be  rational 
were  to  adopt  it  he  would  be  looked  upon  as 
insane." 

"Such,"  says  Ward,  "is  nature's  economy. 
How  different  the  economy  of  a  rational  be- 
ing! He  prepares  the  ground,  clearing  it  of 
its  vegetable  competitors,  then  he  carefully 
plants  the  seeds  at  the  proper  intervals  so  that 
they  shall  not  crowd  one  another^  and  after 
they  have  sprouted  he  keeps  off  their  enemies 
whether  vegetable  or  animal,  supplies  water  if 
needed,  even  supplies  the  lack  of  chemical  con- 
stituents of  the  soil,  if  he  knows  what  they 
are,  and  thus  secures,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
the  vigorous  growth  and  fruition  of  every  seed 
planted.   This  is  the  economy  of  mind." 

And  now  Ward  presents  a  truth  that  is  very 
familiar  to  all  Socialists  —  that  the  difference 
between  an  animal  living  in  a  state  of  nature 
and  man  living  in  human  society,  is  that  man 
is  a  tool  using  animal.  This  use  and  develop- 
ment of  tools  is  due  to  that  application  of 
reason  called  the  inventive  faculty,  which  no 
other  animal  possesses.  "The  beaver  indeed, 
builds  dams  by  felling  trees,  but  its  tools  are 
its  teeth,  and  no  further  advantage  is  taken 


178  EVOLUTION,   SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

than  that  which  results  from  the  way  the  mus- 
cles are  attached  to  its  jaws.  The  warfare 
of  animals  is  waged  literally  with  tooth  and 
nail,  with  horn  and  hoof,  with  claw  and  spur, 
with  tusk  and  trunk,  with  fang  and  stingy — 
always  with  organic,  never  with  mechanical 
weapons." 

And  because  man  can  invent  tools  and  im- 
prove them  he  has  an  immense  advantage  over 
other  animals.  It  is  this  advantage  which  the 
biological  sociologists  have  overlooked.  But 
this  advantage  makes  an  incalculable  differ- 
ence. The  fundamental  difference  is,  that  "the 
environment  transforms  the  animal,  while  man 
transforms  the  environment.'* 

What,  then,  is  civilization?  It  is  human 
development  beyond  the  animal  stage.  What 
it  its  chief  factor?  It  is  psychic  —  the  appli- 
cation of  "mind''  to  the  problems  of  life. 

Now  we  see  still  further  how  Ward  is  ir- 
resistibly driven,  by  the  logic  of  his  position, 
to  Socialist  conclusions.  He  sees  that  another 
striking  difference  between  irrational  nature 
and  rational  society  is  that  nature  is  compe- 
titive, while  society  is  increasingly  co-opera- 
tive. And  this  co-operation  is  due  to  the 
greater  development  of  that  psychic  factor, 
which  is  the  chief  instrument  of  civilization 
and  leads  men  to  avoid  waste. 


CIVILIZATION-WARD    AND    DIETZGEN       179 

Turning  now  to  "Pure  Sociology,"  we  are 
told  that  the  subject-matter  of  sociology  is 
"human  achievement."  When  we  ask,  in  what 
does  this  achievement  consist,  we  are  inform- 
ed that:  "Achievement  does  not  consist  in 
wealth.  Wealth  is  fleeting  and  ephemeral. 
Achievement  is  permanent  and  eternal." 

Again  the  sum  total  of  the  things  which 
constitute  achievement  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  one  word  "inventions." 

Achievement  with  Ward  is  another  name 
for  civilization.  Page  after  page  is  given  to 
an  enumeration  of  its  particulars,  —  music, 
painting,  poetry,  exploration,  industry  and 
many  other  things  which  we  have  not  space 
even  to  mention.  The  one  thing  that  is  vital 
here  is  that  "achievement,"  while  it  does  not 
include  perishable  wealth,  nor  yet  the  actual, 
perishable  machinery  by  which  the  wealth  has 
been  produced,  does  nevertheless  undoubtedly 
include  that  something  described  by  Social- 
ists as  the  "process  of  production." 

This  is  of  prime  importance  because  now 
when  we  turn  to  Ward's  "Applied  Sociology," 
we  find  that  not  only  achievement,  but  "im- 
provement" is  the  theme  of  that  branch  of  the 
science. 

And  now  listen  to  this  great  American  so- 
ciologist, who  has  so  far  outstripped  all  his 


180  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

contemporaries  as  to  be  practically  without  a 
rival,  this  thinker  whose  monumental  works 
have  gained  him  an  international  reputation; 
listen  and  compare  what  follows  with  the 
hocus-pocus  that  usually  comes  from  the  of- 
ficial chairs: 

"The  purpose  of  applied  sociology  is  to 
harmonize  achievement  with  improvement. 
If  all  this  achievement  which  constitutes  civil- 
ization has  really  been  wrought  without 
producing  any  improvement  in  the  condition 
of  the  human  race,  it  is  time  that  the  reason 
for  this  was  investigated.  Applied  sociology 
includes  among  its  main  purposes  the  investi- 
gation of  this  question.  The  difficulty  lies  in 
the  fact  that  achievement  is  not  socialized. 
The  problem,  therefore,  is  that  of  the  sociali- 
zation of  achievement. 

"We  are  told  that  no  scheme  for  the  equali- 
zation of  men  can  succeed;  that  at  first  it  was 
physical  strength  that  determined  the  inequal- 
ities; that  this  at  length  gave  way  to  the 
power  of  cunning,  and  that  still  later  it  be- 
came intelligence  in  general  that  determined 
the  place  of  individuals  in  society.  This  last, 
it  is  maintained  is  now,  in  the  long  run,  in  the 
most  civilized  races  and  the  most  enlightened 
communities,  the  true  reason  why  some  oc- 
cupy lower  and  others  higher  positions  in  the 


CiVILIZATION—WARD    AND    DIETZGEN       181 

natural  strata  of  society.  This,  it  is  said,  is 
the  natural  state  and  is  as  it  should  be.  It  is 
moreover  affirmed  that  being  natural  there  is 
no  possibility  of  altering  it. 

"Of  course  all  this  falls  to  the  ground  on 
the  least  analysis.  For  example,  starting 
from  the  standpoint  of  achievement,  it  would 
naturally  be  held  that  there  would  be  great 
injustice  in  robbing  those  who  by  their  super- 
ior wisdom  had  achieved  the  great  results 
upon  which  civilization  rests  and  distributing 
the  natural  rewards  among  inferior  persons 
who  had  achieved  nothing.  All  would  assent 
to  this.  And  yet  this  is  in  fact  practically  what 
has  been  done.  The  whole  history  of  the  world 
shows  that  those  who  have  achieved  have 
received  no  reward.  The  rewards  for  their 
achievement  have  fallen  to  persons  who  have 
achieved  nothing.  They  have  simply  for  the 
most  part  profited  by  some  accident  of  posi- 
tion in  a  complex,  badly  organized  society, 
whereby  they  have  been  permitted  to  claim 
and  appropriate  the  fruits  of  the  achievements 
of  others.  But  no  one  would  insist  that  these 
fruits  should  all  go  to  those  who  had  made 
them  possible.  The  fruits  of  achievement  are 
incalculable  in  amount  and  endure  forever. 
Their  authors  are  few  in  number  and  soon 
pass  away.   They  would  be  the  last  to  claim 


182  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

an  undue  share.  They  work  for  all  mankind 
and  for  all  time,  and  all  they  ask  is  that  all 
mankind  shall  forever  benefit  by  their  work." 

And  so  Ward's  conclusion  is  that  the  great- 
ness of  the  present  consists  in  that  mass  of 
achievements  called  civilization,  among  which 
are  those  inventions  which  have  so  wonder- 
fully increased  the  capacity  of  social  labor  in 
its  production  of  wealth.  And  the  hope  of  the 
future  lies  in  the  socialization  of  those  achieve- 
ments so  as  to  make  their  rich  fruits  the  com- 
mon heritage  of  all  mankind.  There  are  no 
Socialists  who  will  quarrel  with  these  conclu- 
sions. 

We  will  now  briefly  compare  this  position 
with  that  of  the  great  German  thinker,  Joseph 
Dietzgen,  who  at  the  international  congress 
at  The  Hague,  in  1872,  was  introduced  by 
Karl  Marx  to  the  assembled  delegates  with 
these  words:  "Here  is  our  philosopher/'  Of 
course  we  shall  only  deal  with  his  theories 
here  as  they  relate  to  the  conclusions  reached 
by  Ward. 

"All  exertion  and  struggle  in  human  his- 
tory" says  Dietzgen,  "all  aspirations  and  re- 
searches  of  science  find  their  common  aim  in 
the  freedom  of  man,  in  the  subjection  of  na- 
ture to  the  sway  of  his  mind." 

This  is,  as  we  have  seen,  precisely  Ward's 


CIVILIZATION-WARD    AND    DIETZGEN        183 

idea  of  what  constitutes  the  substance  of  civil- 
ization. 

"Man,  to  be  sure/'  says  Dietzgen,  "is  still 
dependent  on  nature.  Her  tribulations  are  not 
yet  all  overcome.  Culture  has  yet  a  good  deal 
to  do;  aye,  its  work  is  endless.  But  we  have 
so  far  mastered  the  dragon,  that  we  finally 
succeeded  in  forging  the  weapon  with  which 
it  can  be  subdued;  we  know  the  way  to  tame 
the  beast  into  a  useful  domestic  animal." 

What  is  this  "weapon"  which  humanity  has 
forged  and  which  constitutes  the  possibility 
of  its  salvation?  "This  salvation,"  says  Dietz- 
gen, "was  neither  invented  nor  revealed,  it  has 
grown  of  the  accumulated  labor  of  history. 
It  consists  in  the  wealth  of  to-day  which  arose 
glorious  and  dazzling  in  the  light  of  science, 
out  of  human  flesh  and  blood,  to  save  human- 
ity. This  wealth  in  all  its  palpable  reality,  is 
the  solid  foundation  of  the  hope  of  social- 
democracy." 

And  here  lest  there  should  seem  to  be  a 
plain  contradiction  between  Dietzgen  and 
Ward,  we  will  go  further  and  see  that  Dietz- 
gen, like  Ward,  does  not  mean  merely  those 
items  of  wealth  which  happen  to  be  in  exist- 
ence in  the  shape  of  tangible  commodities. 

"The  wealth  of  to-day  does  not  consist  In 
the  superb  mansions,  inhabited  by  the  privi- 


184  EVOLUTION.  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

leged  of  society,  nor  does  it  consist  in  their 
costly  apparel,  or  in  the  gold  and  precious 
stones  of  their  jewelry,  or  in  the  heaps  of 
goods  peeping  through  the  show  windows  of 
our  great  cities.  All  that  as  well  as  the  coin 
and  bullion  in  the  trunks  and  safes  form  but 
an  appendix  or,  so  to  speak,  the  tassels  and 
tufts,  behind  which  is  concealed  that  great  and 
real  wealth  —  the  rock  on  which  our  hope  is 
built. 

"What  authorizes  the  people  to  believe  in 
the  salvation  from  long  ages  of  torture  —  nay, 
not  only  to  believe  in,  but  to  see  it,  and  act- 
ively strive  for,  is  the  fairy-like  productive 
power,  the  prodigious  fertility  of  human  la- 
bor. In  the  secrets  which  have  been  wrung 
from  nature;  in  the  magic  formulas  by  which 
we  force  her  to  do  our  wishes  and  to  yield 
her  bounties  almost  without  any  painful  work 
ort  our  part;  in  the  constantly  increasing  im- 
provement of  the  methods  of  production  — 
in  this  I  say  consists  the  wealth  which  can 
accomplish  what  no  redeemer  ever  could." 

And  Dietzgen,  like  Ward,  protests  against 
this  great  legacy  of  history,  this  vast  accumu- 
lation of  the  results  of  the  combined  social 
labor  of  a  hundred  generations,  being  the  sole 
property  of  those  "who  never  achieved  any- 
thing!" 


CIVILIZATION— WARD    AND    DIETZGEN        185 

Dietzgen,  like  Ward,  sees  that  the  great 
problem  which  confronts  the  race  is  to  break 
down  those  intolerable  bars  which  prevent 
humanity  from  entering  into  its  just  inherit- 
ance. 

To  this  great  and  culminating  task  man 
must  bend  all  the  powers  of  his  mind.  Now 
he  has  reached  the  point  where  the  gates  of 
liberty  begin  to  yield  and  with  one  grand, 
united  effort  may  be  thrown  wide  open  so 
that  all  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men  may 
finish  the  long  centuries  of  misery  and  freely 
enter  in. 

To  continue  this  senseless  oppression  longer 
would  be  the  summit  of  stupidity. 

"Consider  the  frugal  needs  of  our  people 
and  at  the  same  time  the  fertility  of  labor, 
and  ask  yourselves  if  mere  instinct  alone 
would  not  be  sufficient  to  teach  us  how  to 
supply  adequately  our  needs  with  the  help  of 
the  existing  means  of  production?" 

To  make  these  "means  of  production  the 
property  of  society"  is  then  the  problem  of 
Ward's  applied  sociology  and  Dietzgen's  so- 
cial democracy  alike.  According  to  both,  this 
emancipation  of  the  mass  of  the  people  from 
the  last  form  of  slavery  is  the  one  consuming 
task  of  civilization. 

And  the  psychic  factor,  the  consciously  rea- 


186  EVOLUTION,  SOCIAL  AND  ORGANIC 

sorting  brain  of  man  is,  according  to  both,  to 
be  more  than  ever  the  instrument  of  "achieve- 
ment." 

To  Dietzgen  especially,  the  time  is  rotten- 
ripe  for  the  great  change. 

"The  salvation  of  humanity  is  involved  in 
this  question.  It  is  so  great  and  sublime  that 
all  other  problems  which  time  may  bear  in 
its  folds  must  wait  in  silence.  The  whole  of 
old  Europe  is  waiting  with  bated  breath  the 
fulfilling  of  the  things  which  are  coming. 

"Oh,  ye  short-sighted  and  narrow-minded, 
who  can  not  give  up  the  fad  of  moderate,  slow, 
organic  progress !  Do  you  not  perceive  that  all 
your  great  liberal  passions  sink  to  the  level 
of  mere  trifling,  because  the  great  question  of 
social  salvation  is  on  the  order  of  the  day? 
The  calm  precedes  the  tempest.  History 
stands  still,  because  she  gathers  force  for  a 
great  catastrophe." 


THE  LEWIS   LECTURES. 

This  book,  Evolution,  Social  and  Organic, 

is  the  first  volume  of  a  series  of  lectures  to 
which  we  expect  to  make  notable  additions  in 
the  future.  We  can  at  this  time  definitely 
promise  two  volumes,  which  will  be  made  up 
from  the  lectures  delivered  by  Mr.  Lewis  at  the 
Garrick  Theater  during  the  winter  and  spring 
of  1908. 

Ten  Blind  Leaders  of  the  Blind.  This  will 
in  all  probability  be  the  second  volume  of  the 
Lewis  Lectures,  and  we  expect  to  publish  it  in 
May  or  June.  It  will  consist  of  critical  studies 
of  the  theories  of  such  reformers,  philosophers 
and  moralists  as  Benjamin  Kidd,  Henry 
George,  Dr.  Schaeffle,  Thomas  Carlyle,  Au- 
guste  Comte  and  Immanuel  Kant. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  Mr.  Lewis  in 
these  lectures  is  merely  attempting  to  refute 
these  thinkers,  nor  that  he  would  disparage  the 
service  that  each  in  his  time  has  rendered.  On 
the  contrary  his  aim  is  to  give  the  reader  as 
clear  a  comprehension  as  possible  of  what  each 
of  these  men  has  achieved.  And  he  further- 
more shows  how  the  outlook  of  each  was 
limited  by  the  economic  environment  from 
which  flowed  the  mental  atmosphere  in  which 


2  THE  LEWIS  LECTURES 

he  lived,  so  that  it  would  have  been  unreason- 
able for  us  to  expect  from  these  writers  any 
other  conclusions  than  those  at  which  they 
actually  arrived.  Understanding  these  condi- 
tions we  can  better  understand  how  to  meet 
the  arguments  of  those  still  influenced  by  the 
outgrown  ideas  which  are  perhaps  best  stated 
in  the  writings  of  the  leaders  here  considered. 

Socialism  and  Modem  Thought.  This  is 
planned  for  the  third  volume  of  the  series,  and 
will  probably  be  ready  in  the  summer  or  fall  of 
1908.  It  will  be  a  direct  supplement  to  this 
present  volume.  Evolution,  Social  and  Organic, 
which  explains  the  scientific  basis  on  which 
socialism  rests.  The  second  volume,  as  we 
have  shown,  is  taken  up  with  an  examination 
of  rival  theories.  The  third  volume  will  restate 
the  principles  of  socialism  and  show  how  they 
are  applied  to  the  pressing  problems  of  today. 
A  lecture  on  "The  Economic  Interpretation  of 
History"  will  show  how  Marx's  historical 
method  throws  a  search-light  on  the  darkest 
places  in  which  sociological  students  have 
hitherto  groped.  One  on  "The  Positive  School 
of  Criminology"  will  tell  how  the  socialist 
scholars  of  Italy  have  revolutionized  the  once 
hopeless  science  of  crimes  and  punishments, 


tHE  LEWIS  LECTURES  O 

and  have  established  certain  very  definite  and 
very  fruitful  propositions,  showing  all  the 
while  that  crime  must  last  while  capitalism 
lasts.  In  "The  Latest  Word  of  Science  and 
Philosophy — Monism/'  Mr.  Lewis  will  show 
how  the  clearest  thinkers  in  the  modern  social- 
ist movement  have  arrived  at  a  conception  of 
the  universe  that  is  broad  enough  to  take  in  all 
reality,  and  to  show  the  relation  of  the  facts 
of  mind  to  the  facts  of  matter.  We  have  room 
to  mention  here  but  one  more  lecture,  and 
that  shall  be  "The  Inevitability  of  the  Triumph 
of  Socialism." 

Each  of  these  volumes  will  be  uniform  with 
the  present  one;  advance  orders  are  solicited. 
The  price,  postage  included,  will  be  fifty  cents 
each. 

The  Art  of  Lecturing.  Mr.  Lewis  had  per- 
sistently been  urged  to  teach  a  class  in  the  art 
of  lecturing,  but  the  many  demands  on  his  time 
made  this  quite  out  of  the  question,  and  as  the 
best  way  to  satisfy  his  friends,  he  wrote  a  series 
of  brief  articles  for  the  Chicago  Daily  Socialist, 
each  article  containing  some  practical  sugges- 
tions for  young  socialist  speakers,  each  sug- 
gestion the  direct  fruit  of  the  author's  personal 
experience.     These  articles  at  once  attracted 


4  THE  LEWIS  LECTURES 

wide  attention,  and  long  before  they  had  all 
appeared,  there  was  an  unmistakable  demand 
for  their  publication  in  book  form.  That  is 
why  this  book  is  issued.  There  is  nothing  else 
quite  so  helpful  for  the  young  man  or  woman 
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And  many  others  who  have  no  thought  of  lec- 
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brings  the  reader  into  such  close  touch  with  the 
personality  of  a  man  worth  knowing.  Paper, 
25c,  postpaid. 

The  Standard  Socialist  Series.  This  volume 
is  a  fair  sample  of  the  twenty-five  socialist 
books  already  published  in  this  library.  In 
their  selection,  the  object  of  the  publishers  has 
been  in  so  far  as  possible  to  include  all  the 
greatest  works  by  European  and  American 
socialists  that  could  possibly  be  brought  within 
the  limits  of  a  fifty-cent  volume.  Of  course  the 
series  includes  the  Conimiinist  Manifesto,  by 
Marx  and  Engels.  This,  by  the  way,  is  pub- 
lished in  two  editions,  in  one  of  which  is  also 
printed  Liebknecht's  work  on  socialist  tactics 
entitled  No  Compromise,  while  the  other  in- 
cludes a  version  of  the  Manifesto  in  Esperanto, 
the  new  international  language,  as  well  as  the 
English  version.    The  Standard  Socialist  Series 


THE  LEWIS  LECTURES  5 

also  includes  Marx's  Revolution  and  Counter- 
Revolution,  and  three  of  the  most  important 
works  of  Frederick  Engels,  Socialism,  Utopian 
and  Scientific,  The  Origin  of  the  Family,  Pri- 
vate Property  and  the  State,  and  Feuerbach: 
The  Roots  of  the  Socialist  Philosophy.  As  for 
living  socialist  writers,  France  is  represented 
in  this  library  by  Lafargue's  Social  and  Philo- 
sophical Studies  and  The  Right  to  Be  Lazy  and 
Other  Studies,  Germany  by  Kautsky's  The  So- 
cial Revolution  and  Ethics  and  the  Materialist 
Conception  of  History,  Italy  by  Ferri's  The 
Positive  School  of  Criminology,  Russia  by  Ple- 
chanoff's  Anarchism  and  Socialism,  Belgium  by 
Vandervelde's  Collectivism  and  Industrial  Evo- 
lution, England  by  Blatchford's  Britain  for  the 
British,  and  America  by  the  writings  of  Isador 
Ladoff,  Roberts  Rives  LaMonte,  A.  M.  Simons, 
John  Spargo,  Ernest  Untermann,  John  M. 
Work  and  others.  Full  descriptions  of  all  these 
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tions as  to  the  choice  of  books,  together  with 
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Bulletin,  mailed  free  to  any  one  requesting  it. 
How  to  Get  Books  at  Cost.    This  Bulletin 


6  THE  LEWIS  LECTURES 

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